


than all the blue in the world

by V762CAS



Series: Veni, Vidi, Amavi [3]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Season/Series 01, Series Rewrite, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:09:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27060238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/V762CAS/pseuds/V762CAS
Summary: Rose looked at him, his shoulders square and his eyes like a question, and reminded herself that she barely knew him at all.The 'yet' shimmered like smoke between their fingers.• A series one rewrite. •
Relationships: Ninth Doctor/Rose Tyler, The Doctor (Doctor Who)/Rose Tyler
Series: Veni, Vidi, Amavi [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/641576
Comments: 22
Kudos: 116





	1. An End of A World

**Author's Note:**

> Sequel to 'And So He Goes'. Third story in Veni, Vidi, Amavi.

He had to admit, he _was_ laying it on a bit thick. It had been years since the Tardis had welcomed a new presence onboard, and even then, the occupants had been veterans of time and space travel themselves.  Perched vicariously on the other end of the spectrum was Rose Tyler, who hovered beside him at the console like a ball of nervous energy, her eyes roving over the unfamiliar surface. The Doctor drummed his fingers at the controls, awaiting her decision with rapt attention.

Finally, Rose freed a giddy breath. "One hundred years?"

His hands leapt from switches to levers faster than she could track, phasing them without warning into the vortex. Rose was momentarily alarmed by the tipping and rolling of the whole affair, quickly fumbling for purchase on the rough coral edge in front of her. Her gaze jumped to the Doctor, taking note of his cheeky grin before allowing one of her own to peek through.

They broke free and materialized with a jolt, and the Doctor lounged back against the console. "Outside those doors, it's the twenty-second century."

"You're kidding." Her smile was playful, excited, even bordering on manic.

But it hadn't hit her yet. He could tell.

"That's all a bit boring, though. D'you want to go further?" Maybe it was down to her youth, or perhaps momentum from the near-societal collapse they'd dealt with mere minutes prior; regardless, the Doctor found himself feeling an uncharacteristic lack of restraint when he met Rose's as yet un-stunned eyes.

Oblivious to his thinly veiled ambitions, she beamed impossibly wider. "Fine by me.”

And further they went. The Doctor launched himself from levers to dials, the whole way measuring Rose's expression, waiting single-mindedly for the golden moment. "12005, the New Roman Empire. Ten _thousand_ years in your future." He emphasized as they settled, head tilting slightly in anticipation..

"You think you're so impressive." She teased, voice still giddy with adrenaline.

"I _am_ so impressive." The Doctor insisted. Companions of his past had been more prone to speechlessness, easy to shock and easier to astound. Rose was proving herself to be part of quite a different camp.

"You wish."  Her chin angled playfully at him, and the Doctor's suddenly all-consuming need to stun her reached a boiling point. 

It was going to take something big to drive it home for her. Something more than just a future civilization. Something she could never imagine laying eyes on.  "Right then. You asked for it."

The Doctor reached a leather-clad arm across the console, glancing his hand efficiently over a small wheel on its way to a dial on the navigation panel. His fingers danced busily over the surface as Rose gripped the coral edge; she was right to prepare, as the next moment saw them tumbling into the vortex for a third time, where they stabilized for mere seconds before separating turbulently once more. As soon as they came to rest, Rose questioned him eagerly, eyes glinting in the golden-green light.

"Where are we?"

Buzzing with anticipation of his own, the Doctor silently held an open palm toward the doors. Rose glanced at them for only a moment before her curious stare returned to him.

"What's out there?"

He pursed his lips, hand remaining outstretched even as his shoulder dropped with good-natured impatience. She quickly took the hint, turning to bounce down the ramp without another moment's hesitation. The door hung open behind her, revealing an almost boring observation room waiting on the other side. 

The Doctor followed Rose out of the Tardis, quietly hoping he'd landed them on the right side of the station while he hunted for the shade control on the wall. Rose moved away from him, and by the time she approached the huge, blacked-out window, he had found and tapped the correct button. The shades whirred to life, lifting carefully as the Doctor joined Rose with equal reserve.  The Earth emerged before them, and his lips twitched in a small but satisfied grin. He settled his arms comfortably across his chest, eyes shifting focus between the planet beyond the glass and the human girl reflected in it.

"You lot. You spend all your time thinking about dying. Like you're gonna get killed by eggs or beef, or global warming, or asteroids. But you never take time to imagine the impossible - that maybe, you survive." Rose was silent as she processed his words alongside the view. "This is the year 5.5/Apple/26. Five billion years in your future. And this is the day - hold on." He glanced at his watch for the first time since landing, relieved to find that they had arrived - just barely - on time.  From the other side of the window and several thousand miles away, the Sun suddenly flared, bursting into a sea of red. Rose flinched in shock at his side.

"This is the day the Sun expands. Welcome to the end of the world." 

Her disbelieving gaze stuck to him for only a moment before re-magnetizing to the scene before them. The Doctor watched her as she stared into space; this human girl, who had never even seen the outside of Europe, who had easily never seen anything so _vast_. Her eyes were dark and warm with shock, reflecting everything she'd ever known where it spun brightly in the ink of everything she didn't. And finally, he recognized it; nestled firmly within the shock, there was a small but sure bloom of comprehension.

In short, she was stunned.

"Come on." He stepped away, but didn't fully turn to leave until she joined him. They walked together down a long hallway, heavy boots and squeaky trainers slapping oddly on a floor that was somewhere between metal and stone. Unlike the tan little observation room, each step brought them even with some sort of odd artifact - vases, statues, heavy curtains - interrupted every so often by the bright white of a wall sconce.

_ "Shuttles Five and Six now docking. Guests are reminded that Platform One forbids the use of weapons, teleportation, and religion. Earth death is scheduled for fifteen thirty nine, followed by drinks in the Manchester Suite." _

Rose's head quirked slightly as the nondescript voice floated out above them. "When it says guests, does it mean... people?"

He cast her a look as they rounded the corner. "Depends what you mean by people"

"I mean people. What do you mean?" Rose replied with the barest hesitation, matching his strides.

"'Aliens'." The Doctor sighed, lifting a reluctant set of finger-quotes along the way.

"And they're... guests, on this spaceship? Who owns it then?"

"It's not really a _spaceship_ so much as an observation deck." They reached the great double-doors into the main event space, and the Doctor dug the sonic out of his pocket, hovering its noisy tip over a lighted panel on the wall. "The great and the good have gathered to watch the planet burn." 

Rose's expression soured. "What for?"

"Fun." He straightened, pushing open one of the freshly-hacked doors and holding it to beckon her through. "Mind you, when I say the great and the good... it's mostly just the rich." He ducked his chin in distaste. 

She didn't reply as they crossed the threshold, moving into a far larger and more impressive room than the one in which they'd landed. An enormous window took up the entire far wall, stretching several stories above them and bending up across the ceiling. The Doctor did not think to slow at the view, so Rose fell a few steps behind for a moment, mouth agape at the stars scattered before and above them.  She caught up to him only once he'd stopped, inches from the glass at the far side of the room. They stood together, Rose taking a quiet moment to stare once more before piping up.

"Hold on, though. They did this once on Newsround Extra - how come it still looks fine?" she pointed out to where the Earth remained very much intact, even as the angry fire of the sun drew alarmingly close.

"The planet's been property of the National Trust for a million years or so, now. They've been keeping it safe, like a great big wilderness reserve." The Doctor reached for Rose's still-aloft hand and shifted it slightly over and up. "See over there?" 

"Yeah, what are they?" She could just barely make out the dozen or so silver machines, all spread out between the reddening sun and the little blue planet.

"Gravity satellites, holding back the sun."

Rose shook her head in awe. "It looks the same as ever. I thought the continents would have shifted, or something."

The Doctor chuckled. "They did, and the Trust shifted them back. That's a classic Earth." Her subsequently raised eyebrows did not venture high enough to merit a comment, so he continued. "But the money's run out now, so nature runs its course."

The longer she looked out at the Earth, spinning quite innocently in front of the looming red giant, the more her face fell. "How long's it got?"

"'Bout half an hour, and then the planet gets roasted." The Doctor was, admittedly, quite excited. Not only had he earned the unexpected privilege of introducing Rose Tyler to the possibilities of her universe, but he would also witness the Earth full circle; this little world, which had received and sheltered him more times than he could count, coming to an end in the most natural and victimless of ways. The same could not be said for his own planet, in either respect.

He had been saving this trip for a long time. As he regarded Rose, her attention glued to the striking scene in front of them, he was quite sure he'd made the right choice.

"So's that why we're here? I mean, isn't that your bit, jumpin' in at the last minute to save the Earth?" Rose half-questioned, her tone suggesting that it was exactly what she expected of him.  To her surprise, he shook his head, stepping back from the window to face her fully. "It's not for me to save. Time's up."

She looked, briefly, appalled. "But what about the people?"

"It's empty." He shrugged. "They all left quite a while ago. No humans within a few hundred thousand miles, give or take."

"Just me, then." Rose murmured absently. The Doctor took note of the suddenly odd energy exuded by his human companion, but they were interrupted before he could lend it a deeper thought.

"Who the hell are you?"

The duo twisted in sync to find a tight-postured, blue-skinned man striding toward them in alarm. The Doctor snorted, watching the being's slit pupils flare in distrust.

"Oh that's nice, thanks."

The man - evidently some sort of Platform authority, judging by his robes and stress level - looked dangerously close to stomping his foot in agitation. "How did you get in? This is a maximum hospitality zone. The guests have disembarked - reception is due to begin any moment now! I must ask that you-"

"That's me, though. I'm a guest." The Doctor interrupted, casual as anything. He slid a hand into his back pocket and flashed his fresh psychic paper - which, thankfully, he'd had the forethought to replace a few nights prior. "Look, I've got an invitation. Look there, you see? It's fine - The Doctor, plus one. I'm the Doctor, this is Rose Tyler." He tossed his chin sideways to where Rose stood watching the exchange, and she hurriedly offered an awkward grin. "She's my plus one. Is that all right?"

The Steward's forehead wrinkled in discomfort, shifting the opalescent gem that sat fixed between his eyebrows . "Well, obviously. Apologies, et cetera." The Doctor tipped his head, accepting the undeserved apology with a great deal of sincerity. "I shall be your Steward for this most auspicious event. If you're on board, we'd better start. Enjoy." He offered them a tight blue smile before long limbs carried him swiftly to a lectern in the corner.

The Doctor turned to Rose, reading the question in her eyes with a smile. He held up the little pad in front of her, and she looked utterly lost upon finding a small doodle of the Tardis.

"Is that your ship? Why would he -"

"The paper's psychoactive. It shows you what I want it to, or what you most expect to see. Usually a bit of both." He grinned, slipping it back into his pocket. "Saves a lot of time and trouble."

It was far from the most unbelievable thing he had presented her with in the past hour, let alone the past forty-eight. Satisfied enough, Rose blurted her next observation with a sidelong look at the preoccupied Steward. "He's blue."

The Doctor chuckled. "Yeah."

The Steward cleared his throat across the room, fingers clamped around either side of his podium. "We have in attendance... The Doctor and Rose Tyler." The Doctor turned to Rose with a goofy grin, nudging her gently with an elbow when her name rang out in the hall. "All staff to their positions."  A legion of shorter blue-skinned beings appeared from seemingly every direction, bustling to little stations through the many ornate doors scattered around. The two time travelers stepped back against the nearest wall to let the workers march by unimpeded. 

"So, these other guests, right? How many of 'em would you know?" Rose asked, watching the Steward let loose a string of anxious directions into his comm. She was distracted only when the Doctor fixed her with a look that was somehow both incredulous and amused.

"None, I expect. Why would I?"

She snorted, but failed to fully mask her slight blush of embarrassment. “Was starting to think you know everything.”

“You'll get over it.” He chuckled, indicating that she direct her attention to the main door, as the Steward began announcing guests.

"Preceding the primary experience, there will be an exchange of gifts representing peace. Platform One first recognizes ambassadors from the Forests of Cheam, namely Jabe, Lute, and Copha."

The carved doors slid open and three Tree people strode through, each adorned in gorgeous earth-toned fabrics wrapped in complicated folds against their barklike skin. The Doctor had been to their Forests once, but had not crossed paths with the inhabitants - instead having spent a strange few days among their cousin race, the Cave people, who made their home deep below Cheam's wooded surface.

As the Trees moved away from the door, yet another blue-skinned creature crossed the threshold. He was quite small in stature, but sported a head nearly equal in size to his torso - obviously an entirely different species than his equally blue peers. The Steward announced him as he glided into the room on a hovering pod. 

"From the solicitors Jolko and Jolko, we have the Moxx of Balhoon. Also," a group of five black-robed, sharp-gloved bipeds entered the hall and the Steward hurried to name them, clearly irked that they had entered at a pace faster than he could announce, "Ambassadors for the Financial Family Seven, the Adherents of the Repeated Meme." 

The Doctor glanced down at his companion, finding her face curiously difficult to read as she watched the guests arrive, each less humanoid than the last. As titles were called out one by one, the Time Lord and the human were approached by the Tree people of Cheam; the shortest, most clearly feminine of the group stepped in front of her broader counterparts to speak.

"A gift of peace. I bring you a cutting of my Grandfather." She turned back, and the Tree to her right produced a small pot with a healthy sapling nestled within. He passed it reverently to Jabe, who presented it to the Doctor in turn. 

"Oh, thank you. Right, gifts." He handed the cutting off to Rose, freeing himself to pat his jacket up and down; he unsuccessfully wracked his brain for anything usable that might lay in his pockets - before an idea struck. "I give you, in return, air from my lungs." A soft breath streamed through his lips, traveling gently across Jabe's upturned face.

She blinked rapidly, a pleasantly surprised look glimmering across her dark features. "How... intimate."

He allowed himself a sly grin. "More where that came from."

"I am sure of it." The Tree woman smiled back and gave a graceful nod, eyes politely acknowledging his companion before lingering on the Doctor once more.

Rose's eyes followed the trio away from them, flicking to the Doctor for a suspicious moment before settling back on the event. The Steward had just begun to introduce a large head in a glass tank when the hovering blue creature glided up to them.

"The Moxx of Balhoon." The Doctor recalled warmly, noting that the being's disproportionately large head looked even larger up close.

"My felicitations on this historical happenstance. I give you the gift of Bodily Salivas." The Moxx shot a thin stream of spit from between his pointed teeth; it landed on Rose's forehead with pinpoint accuracy, and the Doctor found himself swallowing back a laugh as he bent politely to the creature's eye level.

"Thank you very much," the Time Lord straightened, the smallest snicker escaping his lips as the Moxx hovered away. He returned to his full height beside Rose as the quintet of black-robed ambassadors advanced toward them. "Ah, Adherents of the Repeated Meme! I bring you air from my lungs." He opened his mouth wide and pushed out a long breath, wagging his head back and forth a bit for good measure. He could still see Rose in his periphery, rubbing an unhappy sleeve across her forehead.

Ignoring the Doctor completely, the closest robed figure reached a metallic hand out to the human girl, placing a heavy silver sphere into her unoccupied palm. They spoke in tandem, voices rhythmic and utterly toneless. "A gift of peace." 

Before she had the chance to respond, the figures moved away, pivoting in stiff tandem to face the entrance as the Steward's voice rang out its final introduction.

"...our _very_ special guest. Ladies and gentlemen, Trees, multiforms, consider the Earth below, a once rich birthplace of thousands of species. In memory of this dying world, we call forth the last Human..."

The Doctor felt Rose straighten at his shoulder. A low hum could be heard, growing closer to the entryway.

"...The Lady Cassandra O'Brien.Delta.Seventeen."

At first, neither the Doctor nor Rose was quite sure what they were looking at. Two humanoids dressed in white, full-body surgical suits wheeled in some sort of large canvas stretched in a rectangular frame. As they drew closer, the Doctor's focus narrowed in on what appeared to be a face. But that couldn't be right, he was sure.

Until a woman's voice came out.

"Oh, now, don't stare. I know, it's shocking isn't it? I've had my chin completely taken away, and look at the difference! Look how _thin_ I am, thin and dainty. I don't look a day over two thousand." 

Rose had yet to fully comprehend what she was seeing. Fortunately, the few extra seconds it took her to figure it out gave the Doctor's mouth plenty of time to fall open in glee.

"Truly, I am the last Human - my father was a Texan, my mother was from the Arctic Desert. They were born on the Earth, and were the last to be buried in its soil." Lady Cassandra recounted, ever-so-gravely, as her attendants dutifully sprayed her down."I have come to honor them, and... say goodbye. Oh," a sniff, "no tears, no tears."

The Doctor was almost impressed; over nine hundred years of traveling, and he had truly never seen a more ridiculous life form. She existed in shreds, skin and features wired tightly into the high-tech frame and suspended over three large tanks: a lung on each side, and a brain in the center. Evidently, her heart had been sacrificed along the way. _'The last human'_. 

In light of the millions of other humankind thriving throughout the universe, unconcerned with a concept so backward as racial purity, Lady Cassandra was little more than a joke - so the Doctor laughed, and in his mirth, failed to notice that Rose did not join him.

"Behold, I bring gifts! From Earth itself, the last remaining ostrich egg." A small, blue platform worker stepped forward, lifting the large egg between his four-fingered hands as Cassandra dramatized away. "Legends say it had a wingspan of fifty feet, and blew fire from its nostrils! Or," she giggled, "Was that my third husband? Oh, and here! Another rarity..."

Taking a break from the unfolding spectacle, the Doctor cast his eyes sideways in search of Rose, just in time to find her moving away from him. She carefully made to circle the skin-woman, passing through the crowd almost like she'd forgotten the others could see her. The only other movement in the room came from a small platform, as a 1940's-style American jukebox was carted in upon it. The Doctor's arms settled once more onto his chest, comfortably thrilled with the absurdity of the object out of context.

"According to the archives, this was called an _iPod_. It stores classical music from humanity's greatest composers. Play on!"

One of the cart's attendants turned, stretching to his full height to press a button on the brightly-colored sound system. A few clicks and a whirr later, and the impressively clear notes of _Tainted Love_ were sent bouncing out into the stately room. The Steward visibly flinched at the noise, before gathering himself to address the collection of guests.  "Refreshments will now be served. The main event commences shortly." The blue man gave them all a nod, robed shoulders falling in the barest relief as he finally stepped from the podium; he quickly made for the door, but was stopped in his tracks by a streak of blonde blowing right past him.

The Doctor's stomach dropped as he caught sight of Rose disappearing down the hallway. He wanted to kick himself for not noticing sooner, at once frustrated by her fragility and deeply in denial over the part he'd played in it. Still, he was quick to follow, concern above all else drawing him after her. He was nearly to the door when-

"Doctor?"

He turned, recognizing Jabe just before a flash of light danced across his vision. She was holding a small silver device at him, something the Doctor quickly clocked as harmless and irritating, and he offered the Tree woman a tight smile before continuing his march from the room.

Behind him, the black-robed ambassadors approached the Steward, pressing a final silver sphere into his cautious hands.

"A gift of peace."

_ Earth Death in twenty-five minutes. Earth Death in twenty-five minutes. _

* * *

_ "Would the owner of the blue box in Private Gallery 15 please report to the Steward's office immediately. Guests are reminded that use of teleportation devices is strictly forbidden, under Peace Treaty 5.4/Cup/Sixteen. Thank you." _

The Doctor groaned as he turned the corner, at once absorbing the announcement and the sight of his Tardis being wheeled off by a small struggling army of platform attendants.

" _Oi_ , now, careful with that. No scratches." Only one of the workers acknowledged his warning, striding up to him and lifting up a small ticket between smaller fingers. The Doctor didn't bother to mask his distaste; he hated having the Tardis moved about by external forces, particularly to be registered or... _parked_. A ticket necessitated permission of some kind, which went fully against the reality that would be him, retrieving his ship whenever he needed it, from wherever they'd put it. He ripped the ticket in half out of sheer spite before stuffing it into his jacket.

The Doctor balked for a moment when he finally reached the gallery, having expected to find Rose within, but the room was empty. His upset quickly became relief when he pivoted to the room next door, and there she was, sitting on the stonelike stairs beside the potted sapling.

"Aye, aye. We've switched rooms."

She startled, her energy flustered and strange as she greeted him with a disarming smile.

"Oh, didn't realise. I got a bit turned around. They took-"

"The Tardis, yeah." He held out the ticket between his fingers for her to see, only remembering that he'd halved the thing when she gave it an odd frown. "What d'you think, then?" The Doctor plopped down on the stairs adjacent to her, lounging back with an expectant look. She answered him, but didn't quite turn, her eyes fixed on the great rectangular window into space.

"Great. Yeah, fine." She forced out, quieting for a few seconds before her discomfort surfaced once more. "They're just so alien. The aliens are _so alien_. You look at 'em... and they're alien."

"Good thing I didn't take you to the deep south." He found himself huffing out, wholly unable to control his defensive undertones.

Finally, she met his eyes, only to present the question he'd been dreading. "Where are you from?"

The Doctor sniffed, looking away. "All over the place." 

"Daft." She murmured, giving a moment's impression that she meant him before clarifying. "They all use English."

He laughed, a bit thoughtlessly. "Oh, no - most of them are speaking _koaêmo_. It's a nonrestrictive dialect used in neutral zones of this time period. Makes it so species who are friendly with one another don't have to learn a hundred languages." Rose continued to stare, and the Doctor frowned before realizing the glaring flaw in his explanation. "But you, you'll just hear English 'cause of the Tardis. Its telepathic field translates right in your head." He moved to look fondly back at his ship, before remembering with irritation that it was no longer there. 

When he looked back to Rose, the girl's affronted expression caught him off guard. "It's inside my brain?"

"Well... in a good way." He said slowly, taken aback by her tone.

Brown eyes flashed. "Your ship gets inside my head. It gets inside, and it changes my mind - and you didn't even ask?"

"Well, it's- she's..." He sighed. "I never thought about it like that." Truly, he hadn't. There was an enormous, chasm-like difference between non-consensual telepathy and a Tardis connection. With such personal reverence for the latter, it had never occurred to him that anyone would feel distaste for it.  Rose, however, had no telepathic experience at all; it was reasonable that she feel protective of her mind. His lips were parting to concede her point, when she let loose her retort.

"Course not. You were too busy thinking up cheap shots about the deep south. Who are you, then, Doctor? What sort of alien are you?"

The apology died on his tongue as anger flared through him, fast and cold and far too easily.  "I'm just the Doctor."

"From what planet?" Rose pressed.

He ground his teeth at her inquiry. "It's not as if you'd know where it is."  All at once, he was livid. Rose had _just_ been presented with another 'Earthling', a being that despite their shared home planet could be no more different than the girl herself - and still she dug at him, demanding information that she didn't need and certainly hadn't earned. He could pull a made-up name out of the sky, and it would have the same bearing on their budding companionship.

But as the pattern had started to show, Rose had no intention of backing down in the face of his sharpness. "Why can't you just tell me who you are?"

He burst. " _This_ is who I am, right here, right now, all right? All that counts is here and now, and this is me!" They were properly yelling across the small stairway, sitting on opposite ends and exchanging identically fed-up looks, their chests heaving in tandem.

"Yeah, and I'm here too, because _you_ brought me here, so just tell me!"

The Doctor practically growled, standing abruptly and moving to the glass wall in some futile attempt to escape her. As soon as he approached the window, he noticed that his hands were shaking, and he stuffed them into his jacket. From beyond the Platform, the Earth spun large and silent, staring him down with even more intensity than his frustrated human companion. His chest filled with shame.

_ Earth Death in twenty minutes. Earth Death in twenty minutes. _

"Alright." Rose's voice came from close beside him, defeated but gentle. Regretful, even. The shame reached his throat. "As my mate Shareen says, don't argue with the designated driver. Can't exactly call for a taxi... we're a bit out of range."

The Doctor spared a half-smile at that, turning finally to find her blonde head angled at her phone.

"Tell you what." He slid the mobile from her fingers with one hand, reaching the other into his pocket for an appropriately-sized amplifier. "With a little bit of jiggery pokery..." The device snapped perfectly into place around the battery pack. 

Rose peered around his arm, a tentative glimmer of warmth in her eyes.  "Is that a technical term, jiggery pokery?" 

"Yeah. I came first in jiggery pokery, what about you?" He played, some small, broken part of him calming as he absorbed her silent forgiveness.

"Nah, I failed hullabaloo."

They shared a gentle laugh as the Doctor gave her mobile a final once-over.  "There you go." He pressed it into her hand and she looked back at him, at a bit of a loss. Another reassuring nod from him and her attention shifted, thumbs instinctively punching in her mother's contact card. The ringback tone crackled through almost immediately, speaker small but efficient in the quiet of the gallery. 

A few seconds more, and the tone was replaced by Jackie's short-voweled greeting.  " _A_ _llo?_ "

"Mum?"

" _Oh, 'ello... tried to get a hold of ya this morning, called Mick's and all but it went to the machine. You been sleeping?"_ A rustling sound came through the speaker _. "Oh, this red top's falling to bits. You should get your money back. Go on, there must be something - you never phone middle of the day_."

Rose's lips could not decide to smile or round out in disbelief. In lieu of a choice, the smallest laugh danced breathless from between them.

" _What's so funny?_ "

"Nothin'. You alright, though?"

" _Yeah, 'less they miss some of them cocked-up electric shop dummies in that recall. What's even the point of-"_

"What day is it?" Rose interrupted Jackie before the babbling point of no return, for which the Doctor - listening in, as he was - counted himself grateful.

" _Wednesday, all day - you got a hangover? Oh, tell you what - put a quid in the Lottery syndicate. I'll pay you back later._ "

For once, Rose successfully hid her laugh. "Yeah, er, I was just calling 'cos... I might be late home."

From the other side of the line, Jackie gave uncharacteristic pause.

" _Is there something wrong?_ "

"No. I'm fine." For a moment, Rose turned her head and met the Doctor's eyes, delirious and beaming. "Top of the world." She  pulled the mobile slowly down from her ear, eyes almost unseeing as her mind whirled about behind them. 

"Think that's amazing, wait 'til you get the bill." He joked, but she was still focused at the screen. Admittedly, he had trouble imagining what it would be like - to so suddenly gain awareness of non-linear time. He had watched it rise over the faces of a dozen companions, but was no closer to conjuring what felt like a realistic impression.

"That was five billion years ago." He nodded a confirmation, smiling softly out at the Earth as if it could be happy for her, too. "So...she's dead now. Five billion years later, my mum's dead."

The Doctor's brow, which he'd lifted in the barest anticipation, deflated back into place. "Bundle of laughs, you are."

And then, without warning, the floor gave three very palpable shakes. Rose's fog of epiphanies dissipated as she snapped a wide-eyed look toward him. A curious smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth as he returned her questioning gaze.

"That's not supposed to happen."


	2. An End of A World; Pt. 2

' _Honoured guests, do be reassured that gravity pockets may cause slight turbulence. Thanking you_.'

The Doctor scoffed as the Steward's dulcet tones echoed above them, throwing an unconvinced eye roll down at Rose as they re-entered the main event space. She returned his skepticism with a lost look, and he gestured vaguely at the ceiling. "That wasn't a gravity pocket. I know gravity pockets, and they don't feel like that." Before she could reply, his attention had shifted to the flower-crowned ambassador from Cheam, who had broken away from the other guests to approach them. "What d'you think, Jabe? Listen to the engines - they've pitched up about thirty Hertz. Bit dodgy, don't you think?"

Rose found slight reprieve in Jabe's uncomprehending eyes as they blinked away the question, thankful she was not the only one who had difficulty responding to the Doctor's frequent odd and unanticipated observations. "It is the sound of metal... it makes no sense to me."

But the Doctor had already moved on, forehead wrinkling as his gaze flicked across the walls. "Where's the engine room?"

Jabe straightened. "That, I do not know - but the maintenance duct is just behind our guest suite. I could show you and your..." her dark eyes settled on Rose, "...wife?"

The Time Lord chuckled, directing an amused glance at his human companion. "She's not my wife."

"Partner?"

"No."

"Concubine?" Jabe looked blankly between them, culturally at a complete loss over the nature of their relationship. The Tree woman's lips parted in preamble to another poor guess, but she didn't quite get it out before Rose's patience thinned beyond use.

"Whatever I am, it must be invisible. D'you mind?" She finally bit out, Jabe giving her an openly confused look in return. "Tell you what, you two go and pollinate. I'll be catching up with the family." It was the Doctor's turn to look lost, and Rose tipped her head toward Lady Cassandra, whose off-putting frame sat facing the window across the room. "Quick word with Michael Jackson."

The Doctor found himself torn, both pleased that Rose was beginning to regain her confidence in the new environment, and suspicious of the glint in her eye as she strutted off toward the skin-woman.

"Oi!" He called after her, and she turned to give him an eyebrow. "Just - don't start a fight."

She tilted her chin with impish defiance. "Right. And I want you home by midnight."

The Doctor pursed his lips, throwing her a final reprimanding eye before offering Jabe his leather-clad arm. "I'm all yours."

Rose watched them disappear back through the main door, a small flicker of annoyance dancing behind her ribs. As she moved closer to the human remnant before her, the annoyance gave way to something more in the realm of anxious nausea.  She swallowed thickly and forced herself into Cassandra's space, lending a great deal of mental energy toward being unbothered by the stretched skin and organ tanks of the whole affair.

"...'Ello. I'm Rose... Tyler. Rose Tyler." She pushed out, suddenly wondering if there was some sort of far-future etiquette for introductions. Cassandra's eyes, round and natural in spite of the rest of her, barely shifted in acknowledgement.

"Soon, the sun will complete her transition to Red Giant, and my home will die. The ground of my youth... Mummy and Daddy had a house down there, built right into the side of the Los Angeles Crevice. I was just a little boy. I had such fun." 

Rose took the rollercoaster of words in stride, eager to release the question that had boiled in her since arriving on the Platform. "But... what about everyone else? If you're the _last_ human, what's happened to the rest?"

Cassandra sighed. "They say mankind has touched every star in the sky."

"So, you're not-" 

"I am the last _pure_ human. The others... mingled." Even with roughly three facial features to speak of, the skin woman composed a quite impressive look of disgust. "They call themselves New Human and Proto-human, Digi-human, even _Humanish -_ but you know what I call them? _Mongrels._ "

Rose simply stared, caught more than a little off guard by the unbridled venom in Cassandra's tone, before it took on an even more sickening lilt of sweetness.

"But not me - I kept myself pure."

The more fully-formed of the two humans could barely restrain her eye roll. "Right.  How many operations have you had?"

Cassandra visibly perked. "Seven hundred and eight. Next week, it's seven hundred and nine - I'm having my blood bleached. Is that why you've come to me?"

" _What?_ "

Cassandra let out a pretentious hum. "You could be flatter, child. You've got a fair bit of jaw poking out."

The aforementioned jaw hung open in disbelief. "I'd rather die." 

Cassandra sniffed haughtily, and Rose imagined that if the woman had hands, they would be rudely waving her off. "Honestly, it doesn't hurt. Preservation is nothing to fear."

"No, I mean it. I'd rather die." The girl's eyes traveled once more over the uncomfortable fact in front of her, Cassandra's skin glistening with moisture from her attendants' odd hoses, and organ tanks glowing from the impending fire of the sun. "It's better to die than live like you, a _bitchy_ trampoline."

To Rose's utter exasperation, Cassandra's voice maintained its horribly syrupy composure. "And what breed are _you_ , then?"

Perhaps unwisely, she snapped. "I was born on that planet. So was my mum, and so was my dad - and that makes me, officially, the last human being in this room." For what felt like the thousandth time in their short exchange, Cassandra's lungs flexed in their confines, preparing another interruption that Rose did not intend to allow. "You're _not_ human. You've had it all nipped and tucked and flattened, and there's nothing left. Anything human got chucked in the bin."

Disturbing green eyes narrowed further as the blonde girl took a step back.

"You're just skin, Cassandra. Lipstick and skin." Rose ran out of steam, meeting her counterpart's infuriated stare with the realization that her words hadn't made a dent. "Nice talking," She pressed out tersely, twisting on a sneaker-clad heel and stalking from the room.

She failed to notice the five faceless heads that turned to watch her go.

_Earth Death in fifteen minutes. Earth Death in fifteen minutes._

* * *

Jabe lead the Doctor through a short series of halls, confidently drawing his attention to various rooms and artifacts. He imagined she'd spent quite a bit of time aboard the Platform; Tree people had vested interests all over the universe, and as such had become a common presence in the intergalactic aristocracies of the time. As he listened absently to Jabe's warm-toned touring, he was trying quite hard to recall how closely they were to the fallout; somewhere between their temporary present and the year 5.7/Apple/30, her people would withdraw from such high-brow relations. The event would occur well within her lifespan, and he wondered what role she might play in the divergence.

"The entrance is just through here."

He snapped to attention, sliding his arm from hers as they rounded a brightly-lit corner. The door to the maintenance shaft seemed oddly shorted - frozen in retraction, as if propped up by an invisible force. Almost immediately, the skin at the back of his neck began to prickle.

"We're in the right place. There's got to be an access point, some sort of gateway into active readings. _'Gravity Pockets'._ " He scoffed, stalking straight into the pipe-covered passage. "Bloody ridiculous."

Jabe followed carefully, a smile tugging at her oddly-textured lips. "You seem quite sure of the Steward's failings. I have never known him to be an unreliable host."

The Doctor blew out a sarcastic breath. "Sure. Seems very collected, not at _all_ the sort to cover his own arse." 

"Precisely!" Jabe agreed sweetly, his tone going over her head. From a few steps in front of her, the Doctor restrained a laugh, continuing forward through the narrow space. His eyes roamed the walls as they went, searching through the mess of wires and machinery for the proper panel. Going off what he knew of the time period's tech, he had a vague idea of what the mainframe might look like; however, he was not so sure of himself that he didn't have several false alarms as they passed various irrelevant screens.

"Who's even in charge of Platform One? Has it got a Captain?" 

The flora on Jabe's head rustled gently as she shook it. "There's just the Steward and the staff. All the rest is controlled solely through the metal mind."

The Doctor frowned. "You mean the computer? But who controls that?"

"The Corporation?" She answered, as if it were obvious. "They direct Platform One from one artistic event to another."

"But there's _no one_ from the Corporation on board?" He slowed his movement down the passage, throwing Jabe an incredulous look over his shoulder.

Again, she shook her head. "They're not needed. This facility is purely automatic - the height of the Alpha class. The system has been long perfected. Nothing can go wrong."

"But, what you're saying is, if something _were_ to go wrong, there's no one to bail us out?" He clarified, a feeling rising in his chest that was a hybrid of situational excitement and utter awe that such an advanced system could be so incredibly _stupid._

"I'm afraid not." She confirmed, and a grin unleashed itself across his cheeks.

"Fantastic."

He caught sight of Jabe's reflection as they passed a mirrored switchboard, her eyes dark and glassy with confusion.

"I don't understand. In what way is that... fantastic?"

The Doctor simply laughed, eyes sparkling with mirth. "Tell me then, Jabe - what's a tree like you doing in a place like this? Seems to me like you represent your masses quite a bit."

"Many of my people do not enjoy this sort of ritual. I come simply out of respect for the Earth."

He scoffed. "Oh, come on. Everyone on this platform's worth zillions."

She quieted for a moment, a tiny smile gracing her lips before she replied. "Well... perhaps it is somewhat a case of having to be seen at the right occasions."

The Doctor's eyes glinted in the odd light as he teased her. "Of course. Got to protect those share prices. I know you lot, you've got massive forests everywhere. Roots everywhere - and there's _always_ money in land."

She laughed softly, conceding the point as they moved carefully around a low-hanging pipe. "All the same, we respect the Earth as family. So many species evolved from that planet; mankind is one, as I am another. My ancestors were transplanted from the terra down below. We are one of several thousand descendants of the tropical rainforest."

It was fortunate that the information she graced him with was not new to his ears, as his full attention had landed on the object of their search about three words in.

"Here we are. Not sure we'll be able to narrow down the problem from here, but I'm betting-" He pointed forward to a thin, metallic door nestled ahead of them, "-that's got to be the engine room." He stepped eagerly up to a silvery screen, retrieving the sonic to muddle his way through what few firewalls guarded the system. His confidence momentarily wained as his first lazy attempt fell short, a large denial message flashing onto the screen. With a groan, he set upon the panel with more dedicated effort, freeing a metal plate to gain access to the wires below. 

Jabe spoke up once more, her tone taking on a curious quietude as she addressed him. "What of your ancestry, Doctor? It seems you could tell a story or two..." She observed him carefully, watching his fingers twist about in the machinery. "Perhaps one only enjoys trouble of such a sort when there's nothing else left."

The Doctor concentrated yet harder on his task. Having already been on the receiving end of Rose's dedicated curiosity, he'd had quite enough questioning of his origins for one trip. Jabe, however, was neither deterred by his silence nor as uninformed as his companion, and her continued words quickly had him freezing in place.

"I scanned you earlier. My interface had trouble identifying your species. It refused to admit your existence."

His heartbeats thundered harder against his ribs. 

"Even when it named you, I wouldn't believe it... but it was right. I _know_ where you're from." She hesitated, her guilt and awe swirling almost palpably in the small space they shared. "Forgive me for intruding, but it's remarkable that you even exist. And I just wanted to say... how sorry I am."

Her voice was heavy with sorrow, quiet as the first breath he'd gifted to her; the Doctor's eyes moistened without warning, hot tears threatening his cheeks for the first time since regeneration had burst, golden, through his veins.

He looked at Jabe before he was sure that he wanted to, before he was prepared to see her face set in mourning for his people. For him.

"How do you..." He started, voice deep and quiet with shock. She raised an elegantly gnarled hand, placing it cautiously on his arm.

“Those who would remember are those who died." Jabe answered simply, voice practically a whisper. "But no tragedy so large is ever forgotten - not entirely."

The words should have bothered him, gnawed at him. The Doctor had been so sure that the universe would be better off, that _he_ would be better off, free of the Time War's echoes. But as Jabe looked at him, her gaze hearts-breakingly gentle and brimming with understanding, he thought perhaps being known was not such a horrible fate.

* * *

Rose was still quietly seething over her confrontation with Cassandra as she wandered in search of the Doctor. The halls were long and unfamiliar, and she groaned when she passed a display case with the same ugly helmet she'd already seen twice. She had absolutely no familiarity with the layout of the Platform, and found herself almost relieved when the black-hooded group of Adherents came marching around the corner.

Before she could ask for directions, the largest of the group raised a sharp, shining glove above her, and she saw no more.

* * *

"Fair do's. That's a great bit of air conditioning." The Doctor quipped. The engine 'room' had turned out to be more of a boundless space, home to three enormous cooling fans and a ceiling so high up that it wasn't even visible. "That's sort of nice and old fashioned." He snickered, moving to the closest control panel. "Bet they call it retro." 

The moment he activated the sonic, he heard something moving about behind the controls. Quickly and carefully, he changed course from syncing with the panel to removing it completely. In seconds it went clanging to the floor, and something small, metal, and most _definitely_ out of place came skittering out. His eyes followed it closely up the wall, lingering where it paused above them. It was an oddly spider-like machine, apparently possessing some level of autonomy as it angled a small scanner light in their direction.

"What the hell's that?" The Doctor muttered, lifting the screwdriver to assess the thing, just as it did to him.

"Is it part of the retro?" Jabe questioned, and he shook his head.

"I don't think it belongs here, no. Hold on." The thing remained oddly still above them as the Doctor flipped through sonic settings, hunting for something that would disable it without frying it outright. His efforts were ultimately unnecessary as Jabe sent a thick vine whipping past his head; she hit the spider dead-on, slamming it with impressive force against the wall before it fell, lifeless, into the Doctor's waiting palms.

He immediately turned to Jabe, not bothering to play down his impressed look.

"Nice liana."

Though he couldn't see it behind her wooded skin, he was almost positive she blushed. "Thank you. We're not supposed to show them in public."

The Doctor winked playfully. "Don't worry, I won't tell anybody." His focus shifted back to the machine in his hand; both in the context of their situation and the structure of the thing itself, its purpose was quite obvious. "Wonder who's been bringing their pets on board?"

"What does it do?" Jabe peered down at the thing, careful distrust on her brow.

"Sabotage."

And then, from above them:

_Earth Death in ten minutes. Earth death in ten minutes._

The Doctor's suspicions were coming together quickly enough to put a fire at his back.

"The temperature's about to rocket. Come on."

* * *

When Rose came to, she opened her eyes to a brutal headache and an incredibly disorienting view of space. The vastness of it sprawled before her, interrupted by the bright blue of the Earth and the brighter sun burning furiously behind it. Carefully, she stood, rubbing a hand over the swollen bump beneath her hair and trying to unearth a coherent memory of how it got there.

She was mentally struggling to retrace her steps when a disturbing whirr broke through the quiet, and an automated voice rang out above her.

_Sun filter: Descending._

Rose stared at the ceiling for barely a second when the whirring noise grew suddenly louder. It was one second more before she grasped her situation.

"Oh, _fuck_."

* * *

The Doctor and Jabe were just down the hall from the Steward's office when the scent finally reached them.

Smoke rested in a haze in front of the door, disturbed only by the group of panicking Platform workers in front of it. Woven into the pungence of fried machinery was a very distinct note of burnt flesh. The Time Lord broke into a sprint, Jabe close beside him, but he already knew there was no saving to be done beyond the door. 

"Get back!" The Doctor instructed firmly, wading through the frightened mass of blue beings to restore the disabled sun filter.

Jabe gathered the small workers around her, struggling to calm them. "Is the Steward in there?!" She strained out, likely well aware of the answer.

Just as she'd feared, the Doctor nodded. "He was. You can smell him. Hold on..." He solemnly rebooted the filter, before giving the whole system a quick once-over. The panel suddenly rang out with an incessant beeping, and his stomach dropped. "There's another sun filter on this floor programmed to descend." The already deep pit in his chest grew larger when he realized which room was due to be fried. 

Without another word, he was disappearing back the way they'd come. His boots thundered against the floor, sending him flying around turns and under archways before he skidded to a halt outside the threatened gallery.

_Sun filter: Descending._

"Yes, thank you." He ground out a useless reply, hurrying to angle his sonic at the corrupted controls. "Anyone in there?"

From the other side of the door came a very familiar, very frightened cockney accent.

"Get me OUT!"

The Doctor groaned. "Oh, it _would_ be you."

Rose pounded insistently against the door, hits growing harder and more desperate by the second. Within the room, the filter was already a fourth gone, allowing powerful rays to rake a blackened tide across the ceiling. "Open the door!"

_Sun filter: Descending._

"It won't budge while that filter's going down. Give us two ticks!" The Doctor called back, lacking any spare time for proper reassurance. He methodically switched between punching in commands by hand and going at the controls directly with his sonic.

_Sun filter: Rising._

He blew out a breath of relief. By the time it fully cleared his lips, it was rendered useless.

_Sun filter: Descending._

The Doctor swore in his mother tongue. 

"WHAT?!" Rose yelled, her voice no longer coming from right on the other side of the door, which he hoped meant she was making more of an effort to protect herself.

"The computer's getting clever." He replied, furiously ripping into the circuit board, his only remaining option resting among the tangle of wires. 

"Stop mucking about!" Rose called out blindly, having flattened herself to the lowest point of the floor, arms wrapped around her face to stave off the intense light.

"I am not _mucking about_ , it's fighting back!"

"Doctor, you've got to get me out of here, _right now_!"

"I _know_!"

The Doctor ignored the repeated shocks running across his fingertips, desperately re-wiring the sensors, until finally:

_Sun filter: Rising. Sun filter: Rising._

As soon as the automated voice spoke up, Rose came bursting through the door, nearly knocking the Doctor off his feet in her haste.

"Rose, you should've waited for me to open it - you could have burned your skin off!" He steadied her by the wrists, immediately checking her over for burns. Fortunately, she appeared to have made it out unharmed; her palms were quite red, but it appeared to be more from their repeated impact with the doors than anything else.

"I waited the first time, and what good did that do?!" She retorted, pulling her arms away angrily. 

The Doctor huffed in frustration. "Listen to me. It's not safe to be runnin' about in here anymore. Something's gone wrong, and I need you to stay _right here_ ," he took her carefully by the shoulders and directed her into the corner, "until I've sorted this out. Don't go near any windows, don't go back to the main room, just - stay." He pointed a finger at her, and she scowled.

"I'm not a kid."

The Doctor tilted his head in challenge. "No, but you are flammable, are you not?" She narrowed her eyes at him. "That's what I thought."

He stared Rose down for one moment more before taking off down the corridor, her angry brown gaze sticking to him as he went.

_Earth Death in five minutes. Earth Death in five minutes._

* * *

Upon entering the main event space, the Doctor found Jabe addressing the group of confused guests with the sabotage bot held tightly in her wooded fingers.

"My interface confirms it. These spider devices have infiltrated the whole of Platform One." She cast a serious look around at the variety of faces, before turning to catch the Doctor's eye. He held out a hand as he moved around her, and she silently handed him the spider.

Unsurprisingly, Lady Cassandra was the first to speak up, her voice shrill and agitated. "How is that possible? Our private rooms are protected by a code wall!" Her wild eyes flicked sideways to a surgical-suited attendant. "Moisturise me!"

"Summon the Steward." The Moxx of Balhoon demanded angrily, his blame as quickly placed as it was misguided. Jabe flashed dark eyes down at the large-headed being.

"I'm afraid the Steward is dead."

The Moxx gave an uncomfortable fidget, sitting as far back as his hover pod would allow. "Who killed him?!" 

The room erupted in low mumbles, each group of guests casting distrustful glances at the others. The Doctor shook his head impatiently, stepping forward and holding the spider in his palm.

"There's an easy way to find out." He lifted his sonic at the creature, repairing what little damage Jabe had done to it and powering the machine back up. "See, someone here brought this little bastard on board. So I say we send him back to master."

The Doctor carelessly dropped the spider to the ground. It righted itself immediately, flashing an angry red light at the Doctor before scuttling off toward Lady Cassandra's motionless frame. The room was silent as it faced her, observing with baited breath as it rotated on sharp legs and headed straight for the black gowned Adherents.

The skin woman immediately pounced. "The Adherents of the Repeated Meme. J'accuse!"

The Doctor shot her a cold smirk. "That's all very well, and really kind of obvious. But if you stop and think about it..." He sauntered over to the hooded group without a drop of hesitation. The moment he was within reach, the largest Adherent moved to strike him, but the Doctor was too fast - he shifted immediately sideways, catching the large arm and ripping it from the socket with one efficient yank. A series of gasps spread throughout the room as the arm's robotic interior was revealed. The Doctor stepped back from the group, digging a finger into the machinery and ripping at the central receptor. As soon as he did so, all five Adherents collapsed to the floor, cut off from the animation feed.

All eyes were on the Doctor, but his stuck solely to Cassandra. "A Repeated Meme is just an idea. And that's all they are - an idea. Remote controlled Droids. A nice little cover for the real troublemaker." He looked down, then, nudging the confused spider bot with the toe of his boot. "Go on, Jimbo. Go home."

It needed no further convincing, wandering on sharp little legs right up to the tank housing Cassandra's brain. The woman growled.

"I bet you were the school swot and never got kissed. At arms!" The white-suited humanoids at her sides swiftly angled their sprayers at the Doctor, who gave a mock gasp of fear.

"What are you going to do, moisturise me?"

Cassandra gave him an unamused glare. "With acid. You're too late, anyway - my spiders have control of the mainframe. You all carried them as gifts, tax free, past every code wall. Seems I'm not just a pretty face." She said haughtily, giving the Doctor a smug look.

The Time Lord, however, wouldn't play. "Sabotaging a ship while you're still inside it? How stupid is that?"

"I'd hoped to manufacture a hostage situation, with myself as one of the victims. The compensation would have been enormous."

The Doctor groaned. "I can't wait for the day when it doesn't come down to _money_. It's almost boring." 

Cassandra glared away the snipe. "Do you think it's cheap, looking like this? Flatness costs a fortune. I am the last human, Doctor. Me! Not that freaky little thing of yours."

Angry heat flashed through the Doctor's chest, and he took a threatening step toward her, but didn't get far before Jabe was grasping his elbow. The other guests were truly beginning to panic, filling the room with a cacophony of stressed chatter.

_Earth Death in three minutes. Earth Death in three minutes._

The skin woman practically sang to the room. "And here it comes. You're all just as useful dead, I suppose. I have shares in your rival companies, and they'll triple in price as soon as you're gone. My spiders are primed and ready to destroy the safety systems. How did that old Earth song go?" She smiled, sickly sweet. "Burn, baby, _burn_."

"Then you will burn with us." Jabe practically growled, with a measure of hatred in her voice that the Doctor hadn't thought her capable of.

"Oh, I'm so sorry. I know the use of teleportation is strictly forbidden, but I'm such a naughty thing." Her green eyes flashed to her attendants. "Activate."

The humanoid to her left lifted an arm to reveal a line of switches fused upon it. Seemingly the moment he made contact, a series of muffled but distinct explosions rang out around them.

Lady Cassandra giggled with glee. "Forcefields gone, with the planet about to explode. At least it'll be quick... Just like my fifth husband." She laughed, as though giving a speech at a dinner party, and not condemning several dozen innocent beings to death. The Doctor's fists clenched tightly, short nails leaving tiny half-moons on his palms. "Oh, shame on me."

_Safety systems: Failing._

The attendant controlling the switches pressed another combination into his forearm, as Cassandra puckered her lips.

"Bye, bye, my darlings."

And then she was gone, the white-suited humanoids dissolving with her into thin air.

* * *

Rose had tied and untied her shoe four times.

She sat with her back against the wall, half brimming with annoyance that the Doctor had made her stay behind, and half in hazy mania from her second near-death experience within forty eight hours. It occurred to her that she hadn't had a bit of sleep in all that time, not since before she'd gone to see Clive the conspiracy bloke.

He'd told her the Doctor was an alien. She'd thought he was crazy.

Not only had she proceeded to accompany said alien in his time machine to the very far future, but he had brought her to a party comprised entirely of _other aliens_.

If it didn't all feel so excitingly, frighteningly, drainingly real... she'd think she were insane. But there she sat, in the hallway of a space station that was growing uncomfortably warm, waiting for the Doctor to come back for her. Or perhaps they'd both die for real, this time.

Suddenly, a sizable explosion burst from a vent just two doors down from the one she sat beside. Rose leapt to her feet, backing away as several more thunderous noises rang out around her. She began to run for the main room, but quickly stopped in her tracks, recalling the many windows that lined the walls around the corner as the Doctor's warning echoed in her ears.

_Earth Death in two minutes. Earth Death in two minutes._

With a firm nod to herself, she turned and ran in the other direction, hoping with the last of her energy that she'd find a safer route.

* * *

The Time Lord and the Tree woman burst back into the engine room, immediately hunting for their saving grace. When the Doctor spotted it, he nearly roared in frustration.

The system restore lever sat, labeled plain as day, beside the access door on the opposite side of the room. 

"We're on the wrong side." He said flatly. There was no time left to go all the way back around, which left him with only one horribly dangerous option. He could reach the switch by crossing the maintenance bridge, which ran directly beneath the enormous and dangerously fast-moving fan blades.

_Heat levels rising. Heat levels rising._

He reached across Jabe to pull one of the enormous breakers, hoping to slow the fans. It made a possibly life-preserving difference, but the moment he let go, they quickly reached their previous level of speed, moving faster by the second.

_External temperature: Five Thousand Degrees._

The Doctor rubbed an agonized hand across his prickly hair, hoping that he'd not yet used up all his luck on the previous million situations he probably shouldn't have survived.

"Go. Quickly." Jabe snapped him from his haze, and he turned to see her clasping the breaker herself, holding it down to give him the smallest extra chance of survival.

Even within the burning heat of the room, a cold rush of fear traveled across his skin. "You can't. The heat's going to vent through this place."

She smiled wistfully up at him. "I know."

He made to step toward her, but she shook her head vehemently. "Jabe, you're made of wood."

"Then stop wasting time, Time Lord."

_Heat levels rising. Heat levels rising._

He left her with a final, boundless look of gratitude, and turned to rush the first fan.

* * *

When she came upon the familiar entrance to the event hall, Rose nearly cried with relief. She'd miraculously managed to find the center hall with no time to spare, and stuck close to the wall as she made a final push for the door. The other guests' panicked yelps of fear seeped through the cracks, muffled but painfully clear all the same.

Her brief shred of hope faded as she pressed helplessly at the panel beside the door, thinking only of the enormous observation window and the dozens of beings trapped in front of it. The already deeply flawed system was proving itself to be catastrophic, having sealed the door against the danger held within. 

With no options left and no way to help, Rose rested her forehead against the hot stone, and waited.

* * *

Just as the Doctor slipped past the second spinning blade, Jabe began to scream.

He whipped around, catching only staggered glimpses as the Tree woman combusted in the heat beyond the fan. He watched her flaming form fall away from the breaker she'd held at bay. For him.

The fan before him became a blur.

_Earth Death in Ten._

_Nine_.

The Doctor closed his eyes, felt the air from the blades rushing against his face.

 _Eight._

_Seven._

_Six._

He took one step forward.

_Four._

Blue eyes opened to find their way empty of obstacles, having made it to safety. The fans rushed on behind him, and the Doctor lunged for the restore switch, calling out a desperate command.

"Raise shields!"

* * *

_One._

Outside the Platform, a thick translucent shield powered up, as the remaining gravity satellites were swallowed by the Sun.

Left unprotected, the ancient blue planet burst, sending shards of rock hurtling in all directions.

* * *

_Exoglass: Repair. Exoglass: Repair. Exoglass: Repair._

Rose jumped when the doors slid open beside her, and various ambassadors came staggering through. Many were wailing, lamenting lost lives that inevitably lay within. Others were silent.

She entered slowly, eyes glassy as she took in several smoking heaps of the once living. Most of the guests had survived, it was true; but any death was one loss too great, and Rose found herself wiping salty tears from her lips as she took in the destruction.

Before she could wonder about the Doctor, he appeared beside her, giving a gentle touch to her arm as he strode past. He headed straight for the two remaining Tree People.

Jabe was nowhere to be seen. Rose's heart sank a little deeper.

The Doctor spoke low and serious to Cheam's ambassadors, giving them a respectful bow before leaving them behind to mourn. He returned to Rose's side with a frighteningly dark look in his eyes.  
  
"You alright?" She asked him, voice cautious and quiet.

"Oh, I'm fine. Full of ideas, actually. Bristling with them." He ground out coldly. "Idea number one. Teleportation through five thousand degrees needs an anchor. Idea number two, this anchor must be hidden very close to the retrieval point."

The Doctor suddenly moved to a pedestal holding what survived of the offerings, reaching out a tense hand to grasp the Ostrich egg that had arrived with Cassandra. Without hesitation, he crushed it in his palm, and let the shell fall away to reveal a small device.

"Idea number three. if you're as clever as me, then a teleportation feed can be reversed." He gracelessly broke the device open with his bare hands, twisted a small screw and yanked a green wire, and Cassandra's stretched form suddenly reappeared before them.  
  
" _Oh_."

"The last human." The Doctor welcomed her, tongue curling around the words with sheer venom.

The skin woman was in complete shock. "So, you passed my little test. Bravo. This makes you eligible to join, ah... the Human Club."

"You murdered, by my count, seven innocent people. Likely more. There are staff all over this Platform."

In what was, perhaps, Lady Cassandra's unwisest decision, she shot back at him. "It depends on your definition of _people_ , and that's enough of a technicality to keep your lawyers dizzy for centuries. Take me to court, then, Doctor, and watch me smile, and cry, and flutter..."

"And creak?"

She balked. "What?"

"You're creaking."

And she was. Cassandra's skin, usually kept glistening by her attendants, was drying out at an alarming rate. She began to crack, oozing blood slowly from so many small cuts.

"It's the heat! I'm drying out! Oh, sweet heavens - moisturise me! _Moisturise me_! My surgeons-" Words tumbled from her in a blind panic, as she searched helplessly for salvation. Her wild eyes landed on the Doctor, and she began to beg. "Have pity! Moisturise me! Oh, oh, Doctor. I'm sorry - I'll do anything-"

"You raised the temperature, not me." 

He felt Rose move to his side, but didn't look at her. Wouldn't look at her.

"Doctor..." Her voice was practically a whisper, full of misplaced compassion for the shriveling murderer in front of them.

"Everything has its time and everything dies." 

Rose stared at him, absorbing the almost emotionless tone of his voice as he stood next to her, black-clad and square-shouldered and so worryingly _cold_.

Cassandra's voice, for her part, had become a full-fledged shriek. "I'm too young!"

It happened in less than a second. She burst in her frame, bits of skin flying across the room and leaving only a few pale, leathery shreds behind.

It was over.

But the Doctor's temper was out of control.

The sinews of his back were coiled tight under his jacket, as he regarded Cassandra's remains with hot, furious eyes. His nails were once again digging patterns into his palms, knuckles shaking ever so slightly. Beside him, Rose's shock was palpable, her confusion and innocence and hurt suddenly so overwhelming in the air between them that he stepped back and fled the room.

Rose watched him stride away, leaving her alone there, in front of the failed remnants of the Last Human. It wasn't long before she couldn't stomach the torn skin before her, and she turned instead to face the window, only to be harshly reminded of what had caused all the destruction in the first place.

The horrible, stunning view of space drew her toward the glass. As she went, she failed to take notice of the large tank behind her, or the pair of warm, ancient eyes following her from within.

* * *

_Shuttles Four and Six departing. This unit now closing for maintenance._

It didn't take long for the Doctor to collect himself, primarily because he was so entirely exhausted. He took a brief circuit of the main corridor, doing his best not to linger on the sun-inflicted damages at every turn. When he finally found himself back at the main room, he stopped just short of entering.

The guests had all left, survivors rushing to their ships with understandable haste. The Platform attendants had dispersed to the maintenance areas, legions of them beginning what would likely be weeks of internal repairs. That left only his companion, who stood at the end of the room, inches from the glass wall.

Beyond her was a wall of fire. The fully realized Red Giant swam with heat in the darkness of space, obscured only occasionally by a chunk of Earth floating past. Guilt settled in the Doctor's stomach like a rock. 

Their role in derailing Cassandra's plan had been important, of that he was sure. Lives were saved that would have been lost. Still, even if the event had gone down with no life-threatening hiccups, the Doctor found himself deeply unsure whether Rose Tyler had been ready to see the death of her planet. It had been over a hundred years since he'd had a companion at his side, and he'd gone and rushed her straight into the existential awareness of it all; his failure to guide her gently into the universe sat heavily in his mind as he finally made his way across the room.

When he stepped up beside her, he almost expected to find her crying, but she wasn't. Her eyes were soft and sad, pink lips set in the barest downward tug.

"It's gone." Her voice emerged unexpectedly, directed out at where her planet once spun. "We were so busy saving ourselves, no one saw it go. All those years, all that history... and no one was even looking." She traced a short nail along the glass, following the ghosts of cracks that would have seen them all out among the fire.

“The end of something isn’t the end of everything. Even if that something is a grand something.” The Doctor's double-pulse felt, in that moment, just a little heavier. He reached out a hand. "Come with me."

* * *

Rose was quiet as he piloted the Tardis into the vortex, electing to cling to the railing for the short journey instead of the console's edge. When they finally materialized, he nodded silently toward the door. It was hard to keep the ghost of her earlier excitement from his mind as she moved, subdued, down the ramp.

Just as he'd done when they'd arrived on Platform One, he gave her a moment alone to absorb their landing place, before following her out of the Tardis and into the bustling London street. 

When he approached, Rose didn’t turn to look for him, but she knew he was there.

“You think it’ll last forever, people and cars and concrete. But it won’t.” He cast a look into the sun. "One day it’s gone. Even the sky.” For the smallest moment, the Doctor’s mind was red and sharp and miles away - but his eyes caught on Rose, standing just a few inches from his chest and taking in a world that time had held, killed, and resurrected in front of her eyes.

The memories fell away as quickly as they'd come, as he stood there in the heart of London, watching her process. Legions of humans roved around them, making a variety of noises and existing in a million different, horribly boring, fascinating ways. 

And she'd been right. She did deserve to know.

“My planet’s gone.”

Rose stayed quiet for a moment, absorbing the horror behind the words, so out of place in his gentle tone.

“I’m sorry,” She offered, not quite possessing the strength to look at the Doctor. She looked down at her palms instead, each still red from pounding on the doors that trapped her such a short while before. “What happened?”

“There was a war, and we lost.” He answered, simply, seriously. “Now it's just rocks and dust.”

“Is that why…” Rose started, tapering off when her voice wavered. She summoned the bravery to search out his face in time to watch the shadow on his cheek grow harsher. “Is that why?” She decided the words were enough, wondered if she’d even needed to speak them in order for the Doctor to hear her.

She honestly expected him to argue, or perhaps avoid the point completely. Instead, he turned to her and spoke softly, reaching for her hand but stopping just short of contact. 

“Maybe I needed you to feel it, too.” 

Rose looked at him, his shoulders square and his eyes like a question, and reminded herself that she barely knew him at all.

The _yet_ shimmered like smoke between their fingers.

“What about your people?”

"I'm a Time Lord." His gaze, as bright and blue as the finite sky above them, traveled carefully across her face. “I’m the _last_ Time Lord. I’m on my own, ‘cause there’s no one else.”

“There’s me.” Rose piped up, without thinking. She hadn’t expected to rouse him so easily from his trance, but his eyes lost their glaze and fell on her with ease.

The Doctor regarded his companion, somehow having ended up on the receiving end of her trust and empathy - and, miraculously, her forgiveness. He couldn’t give the universe back to himself, but he thought, just maybe, he could give it to her. “You understand how dangerous it is. Do you want to go home?"

She frowned when the word left his lips, her face falling into the same conflict he’d first seen on her the night before.

“I want…” She trailed off, her gentle indecision suddenly replaced by narrow-eyed focus. “D'you smell chips?”

The Doctor inhaled the city air, and his resulting exhale rumbled out in a laugh. “Yeah.”

“I want chips.”

“Me too,” he concurred, the combined weight of their recent experiences dissipating as he watched her hunt single-mindedly for the source of the scent. The sheer adaptability of a human being would never fail to surprise him.

Rose nodded, then - to herself or to him, he wasn’t quite sure, but her mind was certainly made up. "Right then, chips it is - and you can pay."

He grinned at her charge, offering an almost-but-not-quite apologetic shrug as he remembered that his only credit card was still somewhere in the Lethbridge-Stewart household. "No money."

"What sort of date are you?" Rose rolled her eyes at him good-naturedly. "Fine, then, tightwad. Chips are on me." She threaded an arm through the crook of his elbow, tugging him down the street. "We've only got five billion years 'til the shops close." Her grin was tongue-touched and carefree, bright as anything he'd ever seen, as if they both hadn't spent the past two days trading off forced heroism.

The Doctor had no idea how he'd stumbled upon her in a basement of all places, but perhaps Rose Tyler was proof that luck hadn't quite finished with him yet.


	3. Interim I

“So, what d'you speak?”

The Doctor paused his careful stacking of chips, looking across the booth to fix Rose with unreadable blue eyes. “What?”

"What language are you speakin' right now?" She questioned, expression all forced nonchalance and averted eyes.

His brows traveled gently upward. “English."

“Really?" Rose frowned, continuing to dash what was, in the Doctor's opinion, a truly unnecessary amount of vinegar onto her own mountain of chips. "I just thought, 'cos, since you said your ship translates everything...”

"Ah." He nodded his understanding. "Logical assumption, but not in my case." The Doctor paused, nudging the fried contents of his newsprint plate with a plastic fork. "I don't speak it, much - my language. Even, ah," he cleared his throat, "Even before the war." 

Her eyes softened, top lip catching lightly in her teeth as she worked out how to proceed. "Is there, I mean..." She trailed off, suddenly wondering whether it was appropriate to pursue the line of questioning. Sensing her hesitance, the Doctor gave a tilt of his head in silent permission. "Do you just like using ours?"

His jacket creaked against the vinyl booth as he shrugged. "In some cases, yes, I've come to prefer English - but even if I wanted to use my own language, you wouldn't be able to understand me. The Tardis doesn't translate dialects from Gallifrey, since it's only meant to be operated by my people."

He didn't even realize he'd said it until it came echoing back at him.

"Gallifrey?"

The Doctor froze, a chip speared on his fork as his eyes slowly traveled up from his food to Rose's face. Against his expectations, there was no pity in her gaze. She looked carefully curious, well aware of the information's significance but clearly too wary of him to push further. The already massive pit of regret over his earlier coldness grew, somehow, deeper.

"Rose," He leaned into the small table, forearms coming to rest on the edge as he made a futile attempt to find the right words. An odd silence settled between them, surrounded by the low hum of activity buzzing through the chip shop. The Doctor debated internally whether he should just continue what he started, and carve himself open right there in front of her, among the placemats and condiments.

Best not.

"I'm sorry. I haven't been..." the hunt for words was, for once, successful, and his curiously Northern lilt softened, "...considerate. You have every right to your curiosity. I would have you no other way." Rose listened carefully, cheeks pink and eyes dark and energy pulsing with something disarmingly gentle _._ His eyes fell from her, still unused to the raw emotional output of humans after his century-long hiatus from them.

Without warning, a pale hand reached for his, meeting tense knuckles beside his barely touched plate. It took considerable effort not to jump at the unexpected contact, Rose's fully unguarded psyche giving him a jolt - like the mental equivalent of poking an outlet. The Doctor carefully numbed his receptors before allowing his hand to flip, accepting the presence of her caring fingers on his palm.

"Bit of a mess, you are." She teased gently, only the slightest touch of sadness in her smile. For the thousandth time in their hours-old companionship, the Time Lord wondered at her ability to accept whatever realities he happened to throw at her. He supposed humanity had always been magical that way.

"And I just wanted to say, thanks." Her light tones drew him back to the surface once again, and he blinked away the inward tangent with a question in his eyes.

"What for?"

She laughed at his expression, as though he were missing something terribly obvious. "Savin' my life, for a start." 

An elusive grin shined across his cheeks.

"That's alright. I owed you one."

* * *

It felt a bit like a fever dream, and the Doctor tried to recall if it had always been that way; the return, the winding-down moments after threats of death and fiery explosions. Rose, for her part, had kept remarkably cool. He stood by the glass front door, waiting patiently as she paid for their meal by emptying a pocketful of change onto the counter, in the process earning herself quite a scathing look from the poor woman who'd have to count it all.

They returned to the Tardis in easy quiet, letting the sounds of London at its most alive soothe their tired souls. Rose clung loosely to his arm, taking turns pulling and being pulled across the bustling city streets. When they finally reached their rectangular blue destination, he dug two fingers into his back pocket in search of the key. Rose drifted around to lean against the corner, watching him pointedly as she slumped a shoulder against the doorframe. The Doctor paused, key halfway to the lock.

"Care to free your opinion?" He drawled.

She squinted at him before reaching out to push at the still-locked door. "I'm just wonderin' why you keep your spaceship time-machine under lock and key. Seems a bit... I dunno."

The Doctor gave a deliberate twist of said key, watching with amusement as her eyes flicked down to follow the movement. “The minute you touch that door, this _spaceship time-machine_ knows your every intention. She’s been known to let people wander in, so I keep things manual." His eyes rolled on instinct as something golden and annoying poked at the back of his mind. With a twist of one hand and a push of the other, he strode into his cheeky ship and made a beeline for the leftmost console panel.

Rose trailed behind, slowing as they reached the top of the ramp; her oddness gave him pause before his hands could meet the controls, and he turned to face her once more, brows lowered and arms crossed.

"What? Does it bother you that I use a key?"

Her eyes widened innocently. "What? No, it's not - I'm fine."

The Doctor gestured to her with a loose hand before tucking it back against his chest. "You've gone weird." It was true. Her eyes were a bit too wide, a bit too active, and she stood with her arms folded awkwardly over her stomach.

Rose's gaze paused on its third trip around the room to give him an affronted look, her posture straightening in defense. "Have not. I'm just... I was just thinkin'," she hesitated.

"Do tell." He poked, with perhaps a bit too much condescension. 

Miraculously, she didn't call him on it, instead beginning to fidget under his gaze. “Is, ah…” Her eyes were once again resting anywhere but on him, as she rubbed at an over-nibbled fingernail and sucked in an uncomfortable breath.

“Come on then, out with it.” 

“Couldimaybehaveakipsomewhere?” she blurted, finally and all at once.

"What?"

When the Doctor ducked his head at her, she swiftly misread his deadpan amusement as a negative reaction and hurried to explain herself. “It’s just I haven’t slept for nearly two days now. Which is - that’s a long time, for a human,” she clarified carefully, in a very sweet but wholly unnecessary aside, before continuing, “Even with no life-alterin' events in the mix. And I’m just not ready to see Mickey and my Mum yet, because they’ll have _so_ many questions-“

“Rose.” 

Her nervous chatter tumbled on as she glanced around the console room, eyes halting on the jumpseat. “That would even do me, usually curl up a bit anyway while I’m sleeping-”

" _Rose_.“ He said firmly, bringing her attention back to him. “First of all, there will be no kips in the console room. There are plenty of actual beds around.” He briefly freed a hand from where his arms were crossed over his chest, indicating the corridor behind them with a toss of his thumb. “Secondly, in a _stunnin'_ mental feat, you have already managed to forget that you’re in a time machine.”

"...Oh." She stared, taking a moment to taste the true extent of her freedom, before beaming - first at him, and then up at the busily glowing time rotor. "This is fantastic."

The Doctor smiled. "Quite."

* * *

“Galley’s through there.”

"What's a galley?"

He rolled his eyes. " _Kitchen._ "

She glared at his tone. "Could've just said so. Not everything has to be space words." Her hands waved about for emphasis before he batted them away lightly with his own. They were inches into the first corridor off the console room, paused under the arched coral ceiling as his companion bickered with him over arguably the least questionable feature of his ship.

"Rose, it's not a space word. It's a perfectly common member of the English language, to which you are native."

"Well if it's English anyway, and it means kitchen, why don't you just _say_ kitchen?"

“Houses have kitchens. Does this look like a house?”

On instinct, she peered back out through the archway, to where the glow of the console dripped warmly over the railing. “No?”

“No. Blimey. If I'd known you were so argumentative, I might've left you in the basement." the Doctor huffed, in a contradictory aside as he reached down to guide her forward by the hand. "Now, the Tardis would never allow you anywhere that you’re not supposed to be, so feel free to wander - but do try to pay attention because it’s very easy to get lost."

Whether it was due to her tiredness or genuine interest, Rose followed his words without further interruption as they made their way deeper into the ship. The Doctor fully intended to give her a more thorough tour - show her the library, the med bay, the rain room - but not yet. Primarily because she looked about ready to collapse, blinking blearily at him as he pointed out some of his storage closets along the hall. 

And he didn't want to entertain it, but there was still a chance that she wouldn't want to stay.

"Is this it?"

She'd moved ahead of him, drawn toward the rounded door of their destination. Upon their approach, it dutifully rolled sideways along the wall, all natural textures in dusty yellow shot through with bronzelike reinforcements. It was as it had always looked, how the door to every bedroom on the ship looked, bar his own; Rose reached out to brush her fingers on it as it shifted from her way, exposing the space within. Her lips quickly fell open as she stepped into the room, shock blooming across the tired blush of her skin.

The Tardis was a fluid and unpredictable creature, capable of a great many complex and theatrical things. Even without taking the entirety of the ship into account and focusing on the more frequented corners, she would shift and morph so often that the Doctor had quit keeping track centuries before. He did, of course, have areas which he preferred left unchanged - inclinations which his ship respected. Most of the time.

He was not so bold to expect that he'd know what the room would look like, but he also hadn't expected to be surprised. Yet there they were, standing side by side beneath the arched entryway, and staring at Rose Tyler's sitting room.

"What?" She finally forced out, voice cracking in the silence. Wide eyes turned to the Doctor, who had only a shrug to offer in return.

"I imagine the Tardis wanted you to feel comfortable." he breezed past her, moving to a window and gazing out at the almost-but-not-quite-clear view of an Earth night beyond.

When he turned back to face Rose, her lips held the traces of a smile, but something tentative remained written on her features. It took nearly a full second for him to realize why.

"She didn't look in your mind for this. Not without permission." 

Rose's shoulders relaxed slightly, but not far enough to suggest that she was any less confused. "But how does it... and why would she pick the sitting room, 'stead of my bedroom?"

The Doctor reached down, retrieving a previously overlooked playing card from the carpet beside his boots and flipping it between blunt fingers. "Because I don't know what your bedroom looks like. But this room," he gestured in a circle, "I've seen this, and she's in and out of my head often."

Rose furrowed her brow, processing his words before finally shifting sideways to slump onto the tan sofa. "Well. I'll be honest, it's bloody weird, but I suppose that's quite considerate. I've had some lovely sleeps on this sofa." She wiggled further into the cushions and directed a soft smile at him, which the Doctor returned in kind.

"I expect you're due for another. Here," He crossed the room once more, retrieving a dark purple bundle of soft cloth from a dining chair and tossing it into her lap. She lifted it in examination, the fabric unfurling like a curtain in the air as she held it up quizzically. "It's just a shift, unless you'd like to sleep in your denims."

The girl was quick to wrinkle her nose. "No, ta. Even if they smelled alright, which is... not the case." 

The Doctor laughed as Rose shot a look at her jeans. "There's a loo right across the hall. It has what you'll need, including a wash system. Can't show up at home reeking of burnt plastic and solar flares. At least not if you're looking to avoid explanations." 

His companion giggled absurdly, delighting a bit in the bizarre truth of the words.

"Anyway," the Doctor continued, "I know humans get peckish at all hours, so if you need something to eat-"

"-I'll go to the _galley_." Rose quipped impishly, her eyelids already half shut and using her last bit of energy to watch her words land on him. The Doctor rolled his eyes, their unamused journey taking just long enough that Rose had wrapped herself in a throw blanket by the time his gaze returned. Any retort he could muster retreated at the sight of her, bundled atop the cushions with a cozy smile on her face. 

As was quickly becoming a habit, her smile set off one of his, and he hesitated in the doorway. "I won’t stray too far. Don't fall asleep before you change out of those." Her grumble of acknowledgement was muffled by the blanket against her face, and the Doctor gave a good-natured sigh. He reached to switch off the lamp and quietly made to take his leave.

"'Night, Doctor." she called gently at his back. 

The Time Lord let out a warm chuckle. "Goodnight, Rose."


	4. The Alien of London

The Doctor slept for a record-breaking four hours. Rose Tyler slept for nearly fifteen.

If he hadn't known better, it might have worried him. Still, fifteen hours was an awfully long time even for a human, and the Doctor was alight with nervous energy as he waited for the girl to emerge from her makeshift bedroom. It had taken him longer than usual to shake off his own exhaustion, but the moment it lifted, he found himself pacing aimlessly around the Tardis' gently lit corridors. He couldn't remember the last time he'd simply... waited around.

As always, he dedicated some time to repairs - but was forced to abandon the task before too long, when he tried fiddling with things that didn't need fiddling with and got his fingers singed. The silent scolding from his ship sent him grumbling to the library, where he slumped onto his chair with a book about Rodendrian satellite mechanics and remained there until a blonde head appeared in the entryway. Before she had a chance to greet him, he was tossing the book aside and rolling to his feet.

"Aye aye. How was your excessively long rest?" The Doctor looked her up and down, noting the lack of soot and wrinkles on her clothing. "Figured out the washing, I see."

"Good, yeah, seemed simple enough." Rose blinked at him before peering down at her shirt. "Really not much different than washers back home. Just quicker."

"Contrary to often popular belief, some systems are fine just as they are." He moved past her with a nudge, expecting her to follow him to the console room - but instead she hung back, taking a moment to stare around the shelf-lined expanse of the room, lingering on the dark fireplace and oddly-textured carpet. 

"Never been much for libraries," she said evenly, her eyes falling back to the Time Lord hovering patiently at the doorway, "but this is... I dunno. Cozy."

A fond look spread across the Doctor's face as he too glanced around the study, before beckoning her after him. "I think so, too. The proper library's just through the back, but that's a commitment of its own. For now, I believe you wanted to make a stop?" He raised an eyebrow at his companion, who proceeded to nod and shrug at the same time. She remained quiet as they made their way to the console room, and he could sense her fidgeting beside him as he selected the coordinates. His hand moved to the lever which would see them back to London, but he hesitated there, palm lingering on the cool metal with a cautious look in his eyes. 

"It's just a stop, yeah?" Rose piped up from beside him. For the first time, it occurred to the Doctor that she truly wanted to stay. Really _stay_. He'd been so wrapped in the thought that her loyalty streak - while admirable - would cause her to abandon ship in favor of her family, but he hadn't considered that she might be fundamentally unsure of his invitation. A wave of reassurance instinctively rolled to life under his skin, but he held it at bay, hoping his words would be enough to assuage her.

"Of course, just a stop. Can't take you romping 'round time and space with holes in your shirt, and you won't catch me on a mall planet. Best to just pick up what you already own." 

In seconds, clouds of doubt gave way to relief on Rose's face, her expression shifting from apprehensive to full-blown giddy as she tugged at her fashionably-torn sleeve. The Doctor, for his part, was so distractedly pleased by the easy resolution that he threw them into the vortex completely without warning. Experience alone kept him on his feet, while Rose whooped in surprise, turning to grapple for the jumpseat before she gave up and flattened herself to the grating. After a few moments, the room stabilized, but his companion did not reappear at his side.

"You'll get your sea legs." He assured her over his shoulder, reaching across the panels to power down a few non-essential functions. With the girl's mother and boyfriend in the equation, he couldn't be certain how long it would take Rose to both pack up her things _and_ explain why she was doing so.

“How is it only like this out here?” Rose piped up from the floor, and he leaned around the console to look down at her. She seemed to have temporarily lost interest in being upright, her limbs spread carelessly across the grating where she lay.

“Only like what out where?”

“A bloody earthquake. In this room. My room didn’t shake like it does in here.” She reasoned, lifting her arms briefly to indicate the ceiling before letting them collapse back to the floor. The Doctor chuckled.

“The whole of the Tardis is shot through with all sorts of stabilizers. I have got _some_ working in here, just to keep us from getting stuck to the ceiling.” He laughed again as she shot a suspicious look at the lighted dome above them. “But I like to be able to feel movement while I'm piloting. Easier to tell if something’s wrong that way.” The Time Lord flashed her a conspiratorial grin. “It’s also more fun.”

Rose considered his point from the floor for a moment before nodding her agreement. “It is sort of fun.”

The Doctor waited for a beat before raising a brow at her. “You plannin’ on staying down there?”

“When are we going mad again?”

He answered with a good-natured roll of his eyes. “We’re leavin’ the vortex in a few minutes.”

“May as well just stay here, then.” She gave a horizontal shrug, face neutral but eyes sparkling in play.

He grinned at her, at the fun of her words and their parallel meaning, as they rolled wildly from the vortex and strolled out into the Peckham afternoon. As Rose skipped off into her building, the Doctor found himself ambling away with a smile on his face, caught up in the excitement of everywhere he planned to take her.

So caught up, in fact, that by the time he realized his disastrous mistake, it was already too late to stop Rose from entering her flat.

Instead, he burst through the door to find Jackie Tyler already collapsing in sobs against her daughter's chest, the rush of air from his entry sending a small stack of flyers to the floor. He looked guiltily from Rose's shell-shocked face, peering around her mother's mess of hair, to the very same face smiling up at him from a dozen desperate posters. 

_HAVE YOU SEEN ROSE TYLER?_

* * *

The Doctor leaned stoically over the back of Rose's chair, miming attention on her lecturing mother while his true focus rested on the mirror just behind her. It perfectly reflected the window, through which he could focus on the outside world in a last-ditch grasp for sanity. He watched like a hostage as a young boy rode a bicycle past the Tardis, before the child circled around and pulled a spraycan from his backpack. 

_Do Not,_ he thought at the boy.

Perhaps the child failed to heed the Doctor's warning because he was a young human who could not receive thoughts. Still, the Time Lord couldn't be sure the failed communication wasn't due, in part or entirely, to the volume of Jackie's incessant ranting. The boy began to paint.

"Hours I've sat here, days and weeks and _months_ , all on my own. I thought you were dead, and where were you? Traveling! What the hell does that mean, _traveling_? That's no sort of answer!"

Somehow, Rose managed to sink even deeper into her chair, unable or unwilling to look her mother in the eye and instead fixing her gaze to the boots of the policeman in front of her. "That's what I was doing."

Jackie scoffed, furious and hurt and fully out of control. "While your passport's still in the drawer? It's just one lie after another!"

Rose chanced a look up at the Doctor, but barely caught a glimpse of him standing behind her before Jackie stepped between them, glaring at her daughter with her hands on her hips. "I meant to phone. I really did. I just... didn't manage."

"What, for a year? _For a whole year_! I can't believe that. Why won't you just tell me where you've been?"

The Doctor had reached the end of his rope. "Actually, this is my fault." All three humans snapped their attention to him, both Rose and the investigator looking relieved to hear a voice other than Jackie's, while the woman herself looked exceedingly murderous. "I sort of, ehm... employed Rose, as my companion." 

"When you say companion, is this a sexual relationship?" 

The Doctor barely managed to suppress his groan, giving the utterly useless policeman his iciest blue stare as Jackie made a noise like a Stigian river bear.

"No." " _No._ " The duo huffed in frustration, the copper quickly shrinking under the Doctor's less-than-friendly gaze.

Once again, Rose's mother interrupted his silent interaction, appearing in his personal space without ceremony. "Then what is it? Because you," she brandished a finger, " _you_ waltz in here, all charm and smiles, and next thing I know she vanishes off the face of the Earth!" Jackie smacked a possessive hand atop Rose's blonde head, which quickly ducked away from the contact in annoyance as her mother steamrolled on. "How old are you, then? Forty? Forty-five? What, did you find her on the internet? Go online and pretend you're a doctor?"

"I _am_ a Doctor."

Evidently, it was not what she wanted to hear.

" _Wha-_ " Rose winced as Jackie's slap and the Doctor's protest rang out in tandem. The Time Lord immediately straightened, pushing past the furious woman and informing his companion that he would be on the roof. He promptly made good on his promise.

Most things considered, it was a beautiful day in the city; the air smelled uncommonly clean, and the sky was nearly devoid of clouds. The Doctor was almost content there, reclined against one of many generators and taking in the warmth from the sun. Against his will, his mind lingered stubbornly on the nightmarish conversation that was still occurring two floors below. It had already been nearly three hours since they'd arrived, and he could see no end in sight - all because of his never-ending carelessness and Jackie Tyler's never-ending mouth. 

Finally, after twenty more forever-long minutes, Rose emerged from the service door looking a bit bloodshot but none the worse for wear. She scrubbed a final wet streak from her face with her sleeve as she approached him, and the motion should have looked a bit pitiful. Instead she simply seemed resigned. The Doctor was quiet as she stepped up beside him, lifting herself to sit atop the generator in one tired motion.

"I can't tell her. I can't even... begin." The Doctor hadn't yet mustered the energy to face her directly, so he settled for looking at her shoes, watching them bounce gently back and forth against the metal. "She's never going to forgive me. Not for this."

"She will. Fear isn't a grudge."

"Isn't it?" the girl muttered.

"Rose, I'm not exactly gaggin' to defend her, but she's right to be afraid for you."

"She'd be afraid if I moved across the block." Rose shot back resentfully, but her bitterness was hollow. They fell quiet, and the Doctor kicked at a pebble with the toe of his boot. The two of them watched as it skittered across the roof and bounced into a vent.

"I'm sorry about this." He muttered after a moment. "It was already going to be tough, and I... s'pose, I-"

"Cocked things up?" Rose supplied helpfully, and he pursed his lips. "Really though, Doctor... it's not your fault. I'm the one who ran off without givin' her a second thought. My own mum."

"I did say it was a time machine." He pointed out, suddenly finding it quite important to repair the sudden tone of defeat in her voice. When her eyes shifted to rest on him, they were still slightly glazed, but with an extra tinge of humor.

"Right. You said you had a time machine, and my first thought was 'oh good, I'll be back from the universe in time for tea'." The two of them shared a chuckle, and Rose swayed where she sat to bump his shoulder with her elbow. "Missed a year, and all. Was it any good?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Middling." He finally made to look at her, just as she turned away from him. He sighed, stepping just far enough from the generator that he could face her fully, his elbow still leaned on the edge beside her dangling legs. "Well, if it's this much trouble, are you gonna stay here now?"

She said nothing for a moment, before sliding down from her perch beside him. "I can't put her through that again."

"Well, she's not coming with us." He said firmly, and Rose giggled in spite of herself.

"Oh, no chance?"

"I don't do families." He raised a proprietary finger at her, and she nodded with fully failed seriousness as another snicker escaped her lips.

"She slapped you."

He rubbed his cheek gingerly, though his face hadn't been hurt near as badly as his dignity. "Nine hundred years of time and space, and I've never been slapped by someone's mother."

Rose snorted. "That's tough to believe." The tease came before she'd fully processed his words, and he practically felt it the moment she began to backpedal. "When you say nine hundred years..."

"That's my age."

"You're _nine hundred_ years old." She confirmed, incredulous. 

"Yeah."

"Course you are." She blew out a long breath, squinting into the sun. "Mum was right. That's one hell of an age gap."

"Mm." The Doctor replied, head already returning to its place within the clouds. Rose dragged her feet to the wall at the edge of the roof, regarding the city of her birth with what felt like an entirely new set of eyes.

"Everything with you just goes mental. I want to say all this doesn't feel real, but it..." She glanced back, surprised to find him watching her closely. His eyes were bright but careful, as if he wanted the answer to a question he hadn't yet asked. Rose blew out a tired breath, leaving the skyline behind to rejoin him at the generator. "It's just - aliens and spaceships and things, and it's like I'm the only person on planet Earth who knows they exist."

The statement was already quite false when it left her mouth, a fact which he suspected Rose herself already knew, at least to an extent. It grew miraculously more incorrect only seconds later, when a smoking spacecraft of obviously nonhuman construction went screaming over their heads. The sound of the failing engines was so loud that even the Doctor sealed his palms over his ears, but the moment the ship passed them, he chased it as far as the roof would allow. 

"Oh, that is _just_ -" Rose exclaimed behind him, straightening up and dusting off her knees. She came to stand beside him at the edge, just in time to watch as the falling craft disappeared into the city.

* * *

True to form, the Doctor pulled Rose at breakneck speed down nine flights of stairs and straight to the Tardis, immediately jumping them closer to the wreckage. When his panting companion asked if it was truly necessary to sprint to a time machine, he answered with a firm and dishonest 'Yes' before eagerly pulling her back out the door.

The closest he was comfortable landing the Tardis was still several blocks from the crash site. If distance were the only problem, there would've been no problem at all - however, there were the matters of a swarming military presence and street blockades, and the Doctor slowed amidst the chaos with a frown.

Rose let out a noise beside him that was almost impressed. "God, imagine. The whole of London must be closin' down."

"I know, I can't believe I'm here to see this. This is _fantastic._ " The Doctor laughed, in awe of his luck. There he'd been, thinking he'd choke to death on domestics before the sundown.

Rose regarded his excitement with questioning eyes. "Did you know this was gonna happen?"  
  
"Nope."

"Do you recognize the ship?"

"Nope."

"...Do you know why it crashed?"

"Nope!"

"Oh, am I glad I've got you."

Her sarcasm blew right past him, along with another squadron of heavily-armored soldiers. "I bet you are. This is what I travel for, Rose! To see history happening right in front of us."

"Well, let's see it then - never mind this mess, we've got the Tardis." 

To her surprise, he shook his head. "No, we'd better not. They're already in bedlam over one spaceship - far be it for me to shove another on top."

She shrugged. "Ok, but yours looks like a big blue box. No one would notice."

The Doctor smirked, pausing his observation of the chaos before them to look down at his human companion. "You'd be surprised. Trust me, I'm keeping the Tardis out of this, at least until we can find out how it's being dealt with." An armored truck wove past them down the street, and the Doctor followed it with sharp eyes. "I don't like the look of all these divisions. It's a bloody mess out here."

Rose sighed in disappointment, for the first time the one to reach over and tug him away by the arm. "Guess we'll have to do what everybody else does and watch it on TV."

He frowned at the prospect, but let her lead him back to the humming police box without protest. He was, however, unable to resist a small jab as he trailed her into the ship.

"Bit spoiled already now, are we?"

* * *

There was a gash in the face of Big Ben, and a bottle in the face of seemingly everyone. Drunken parties quickly sprung up across the city and the small estate, and it was all the Doctor could do to keep from cobbling together a sound barrier around the thin-walled Tyler flat. The television had all but outworn its usefulness in the first hour, and the others watching alongside him had outworn his patience by the second. Neighbor after neighbor filed in after the news of Rose's miraculous return broke across the estate, and half of those who came did not leave. Human gossip was a powerful force, and everyone seemed concerned with Rose's mysterious travels above all else.

Never mind the fact that a non-terrestrial body had been pulled from the wreckage of a crashed spaceship, which had all occurred roughly ten minutes away by taxi.

If it weren't for the Time Lord's superior hearing, the chatter around him surely would have drowned out the news anchor, and the one most relevant piece of information that he would relay that day. _"We've been told that the body is being transferred to a secure UNIT mortuary, the whereabouts of which is unknown. The roads in Central London are being-"_ A triumphant grin broke across the Doctor's face, and he switched off the telly, breezing from the flat without a single person bothering to notice.

Apart from one, of course.

"Where do you think you're going?"

In a way much reminiscent of their second meeting, he was mere steps down the walkway when Rose appeared at his back in search of an explanation. This time, however, the Doctor stopped to answer her without a second thought.

"Sorry. Bit too human in there for me. The future drops at your doorstep, and they're talkin' about where you can buy dodgy top-up cards for half price." It wasn't a lie so much as a half-truth, yet she still looked unconvinced, teeth worrying at her lower lip while the Doctor moved to put her at ease. "I'm off on a wander. That's all."

"Right. Spaceship in the Thames, and you're just wanderin'."

"Precisely." He smiled. "This has nothing to do with me. It's not an invasion - just a genuine crash landing. Angle of descent, colour of smoke, all of it."

"So?"

The Doctor tipped a shoulder, gesturing happily toward the sky. "So, maybe this is it. First contact. The day universal life is revealed to mankind." He brought his outstretched hand gently to her shoulder. "I'm not interfering, because you've got to handle this on your own. That's when the human race finally grows up. S'like, just this morning you were all little and brainless and made of clay. Now you can _reach_ for things." He punctuated the point with a gentle squeeze, before letting his hand fall back to his side. "We'll be off and away soon enough, Rose Tyler. Spend some time with your mother."

Rose nodded, and then fixed him with serious eyes. "Promise you won't disappear?"

For the only person he'd ever asked twice, she was awfully uncertain about whether he really wanted her around; he supposed it would take time, in more ways than one. Life, however, had not made the Doctor a particularly patient being, and he found himself diving a hand into his pocket without another thought.

"Tell you what," He dragged his fingers from the depths of his jacket, producing a bit of gold and holding it out to Rose. "Tardis key. Only fair that you have one." With a smile that was a gift of its own, she reached to take it from his palm, before surprising him when she held out a completely different key in her other hand. He wordlessly took it from her, brow scrunching in confusion for a beat as he held the larger, silver thing aloft. "What's this, then?"

She shrugged. "We keep the flat locked. This way you can get in without a fuss after you've done your wandering." Her tongue appeared impishly in the corner of her mouth as she teased, "No need to use the flap."

The Doctor couldn't help a roll of his eyes as the two of them pocketed their respective keys. "Hysterical, you are. I'll see you later."

He walked slowly until he heard the door shut behind her. At that point, the curiosity was clawing incessantly at him like some impossible demon, and his pace drew brisk as he made for the Tardis. On his way up the ramp, he pulled out a mobile and punched in the only number he knew by heart. It was a mere two rings before the call connected.

"Meet me at Albion."

" _Why?_ " Alistair's voice came through unnaturally garbled, and the Doctor narrowed his eyes.

"Are you eating?" The Time Lord accused, his hands paused at the controls as he heard a distinct swallow from the other end of the line.

" _Course I am. It's supper time. Doris and I have just been watching the news, which I imagine is the source of your pleasant contact this evening."_

The Doctor huffed, completing a round of the console that would land him squarely within the secured hospital perimeter. "Look, I just want to see the body. UNIT of your time is a fine little gang, but I can't say much for your medical tech. Some species have a long shock period, and I want to make sure there's nothing I can still-"

" _Doctor. I'm retired. I have_ been _retired."_

"But you helped with the Nestene." He prodded, but Alistair wouldn't budge.

" _Yes, because I was involved directly to begin with, not because I was active duty. I can't be your liaison anymore, Doctor."_ The Brigadier chuckled kindly. _"I'm sorry, but you'll have to make some new friends_."

"I have." He growled, fingers tightening instinctively around the silly little flat key in his pocket while he hovered at the Tardis doors.

" _Yes, and how is Miss Tyler? Home from her abduction, I trust?"_

For reasons unknown even to himself, the Doctor felt a flash of heat rush through his chest. "What?"

" _I may not be active, Doctor, but I do pay attention."_

The Time Lord calmed himself with a steady breath and a silent admonishment. "Rose is fine, no thanks to me. You really won't come?"

From his home in the country, the Brigadier chuckled, giving a look down to the sleepy woman on his shoulder and the plate of steak in his lap. " _No. Have fun_."

The Doctor hung up, childishly echoing the words as he walked out of his ship and straight into a custodial closet. With no patience left for stealth, he reached for the latch and found himself opening the door onto a tiny UNIT battalion. The soldiers were in various states of disrepair, some with hats in their laps, some sipping at cigarettes and bottles of water - but the moment they registered his presence, each man scrambled to attention, and the Doctor was suddenly facing the most weaponry that he had in months.

If it weren't for the balanced presence of the Tardis at his back, he knew he would not have handled the situation with much grace. Before the red could completely overtake him, the Doctor cleared his throat and opened the closet door a bit wider, granting the soldiers a sufficient view of the police box parked neatly behind him.

A chorus of rushed apologies and scattered salutes bounced through the room, and as the guns fell away from him, the Doctor was grateful for perhaps the first time that his reputation preceded him. One of the men stepped forward, likely preparing to release a wealth of questions, but the opportunity vanished as the sound of a scream reached their ears. The Doctor immediately straightened, thundering out a practiced and long-buried string of orders as he turned and lead the troops down the hall. 

They slowed when he held out an arm before quietly scattering, most of them lining the walls as a contained few followed the Time Lord through the mortuary door. The Doctor moved ahead, catching sight of a quivering knee from around the side of an autopsy table. In seconds he was crouching, moving low to the floor and bringing himself just close enough to reach for her skin. He focused a pulse of calm in his fingertips and prayed that she'd be receptive - it was far from a real manipulation, but enough of a wave that the woman made no exclamations of shock when he tapped on her exposed kneecap. 

She turned to him with fearful eyes, dark bangs falling across the weeping cut in her forehead. "It's still alive."

* * *

One moment, it was meeting his eyes, an exchange of disorientation and confusion and fear. The next, he was lifting its lifeless form from the cold linoleum, uncaring when its blood splashed softly to his boots.

He carried it back to the mortuary it had run from, and placed it carefully upon the examination table. Doctor Sato stood nearby, her own face full of pity as she watched the Time Lord begin his assessment. He worked efficiently, alternating between prodding along the body with his own clinical touch and running basic diagnostics with the sonic. After a few minutes, he stepped away from the table with a furious hint of bile in his throat.

"Born and raised on this planet, in this time, and not far from here. You'd need a bone sample to be sure, but judging by the isotopes, my guess is the Scottish Borders." He relayed almost tonelessly, and the human doctor stepped toward the body in disbelief.

"I thought, you know, must be possible for aliens to look... but you're saying it's an ordinary pig from Earth?" She looked up at him incredulously behind the dark frames of her glasses, perhaps seeking some further explanation or reassurance.

"Victorian showmen used to draw in crowds by taking the skull of a cat, gluing it to a fish, and calling it a mermaid." The Doctor was already lost in the implications, his own gaze glued to the body as if it could awaken once more and explain its inexplicable fate. "Now, someone's taken a pig, cracked it open, played with its living brain, then strapped it in that ship and made it dive bomb. It must've been terrified." He reached out a broad hand, placing it softly over the creature's silent heart. "They've taken this animal and turned it into a joke."

"Do you think whoever did this is connected to the Prime Minister?" She questioned, seemingly out of nowhere, and the Doctor furrowed his brow in confusion.

"What's wrong with the Prime Minister?"

Sato blinked in surprise, not expecting his lack of recognition. "He's not been seen, Sir. Not for hours."

* * *

The Tardis doors were bursting open not one full minute after it rematerialised in the Powell Estate, and the subsequent sound of sneakers came tapping hurriedly up the grating. The Doctor remained bent between the console monitors, absently getting the feeling as he worked that he should be apologizing for something. The way his day had been going, it was a safe enough bet.

"All right, lied a bit - went and had a look. But it's not what I thought. The whole crash landing's a fake. Makes sense - way too perfect. I mean, hitting Big Ben. Come on." He scoffed. "So I thought I'd go and have a look-" 

The Doctor failed to notice that Rose had been trying to get his attention until she stepped bodily in front of him, physically putting a stop to his tangent. "My mum's here."

Sure enough, he turned sideways to see Jackie Tyler standing just within his ship with a thoroughly dumbstruck look on her face. He groaned, turning to Rose with a reprimand on the edge of his tongue and forefinger, respectively. "Oh, that's _just_ what I need. Don't you dare make this place domestic."

Rose opened her mouth to reply, but was cut off by a third presence that came thundering in behind Jackie.

"You ruined my life, _Doctor_. They thought she was dead. I was a _murder suspect_ because of you." Mickey the boyfriend came to stand a brave few inches from the Doctor, a firm scowl painted across his dark features.

Bright blue eyes rolled their way straight to Rose, who stood at his side with a guilty look on her face. "You see what I mean? Domestic."

The human boy was not deterred. "I bet you don't even remember my name."

"Ricky."

"It's Mickey."

"No, it's Ricky."

"I think I know my own name." Mickey scoffed, but the Doctor pounced again in an instant.

"You _think_ you know your own name? How stupid are you?"

As they tossed barbs, Jackie - who had been hovering at the outskirts of the situation with a horrified look on her face - let out a high pitched noise like a deflating balloon, and turned tail out of sight. Rose floundered for a moment, caught between the warring males of their respective species and the retreating form of her mother.

She ultimately chose Jackie, but was too late to catch the woman before she could flee, and too engrossed to abandon the sudden and worrying new information that the Doctor had returned with. "Mum, it's not like that. He's just-" Jackie had officially disappeared into the building, yet Rose still called fruitlessly after her. "I'll be up in a minute!"

Still within the Tardis, the Doctor and Mickey stood at odds, having fallen into the silence of angry consideration during the mere few seconds Rose left them alone. When the girl reappeared at the console, she looked between them for a strange moment before prodding the Doctor's arm.

"Wait though, you said it was a real spaceship, and now you're saying it's not?"

He shook his head. "No, the ship is real, but it didn't crash, it was _crashed_. Purposefully, and for a reason." Her brow furrowed as questions inevitably began to swirl behind it, and the Doctor found himself momentarily charmed by the focused confusion paving little wrinkles across Rose's forehead.

"So it's all a pack of lies? What is it, then, an invasion?" She finally asked. 

The Doctor was not the one to answer. To all of their surprise, including slightly the boy himself, Mickey interjected. "Funny way to invade, putting the world on red alert."

"Good point." He offered the praise with raised eyebrows, not having expected to boy to sort his priorities so objectively. "So, the question becomes, what are they actually up to?" 

After measuring the lost stares of each human in his company, the Doctor rolled his eyes and moved around to the console's largest temporal isolation monitor. After a moment, Rose and Mickey shuffled after him, the former leaning around his shoulder to peek at the screen.

"What's this one for?"

The Doctor adjusted the necessary distance and time-frame constraints, fingers flying across the buttons as he spoke. "You don't always need to go somewhere in order to travel in time. Factions of the Tardis have the capability to interact with other moments in time - this monitor, for example."

Mickey curiously involved himself once more, his tone only retaining a pinch of its earlier distaste. "So that screen can just see things happenin' in any time? Like, you could turn on a match from ten years ago, but be watchin it live?"

The Time Lord rolled his eyes, already annoyed by the seemingly malfunctioned system, and disappointed further when the promising interaction returned to predictability full force. "Yes, I get the football." He reached down to free a section of grating at their feet, before dropping himself bodily into the space there. "I've just got to tighten some screws." The humans leaned quizzically over the opening, neither expecting his sudden departure under the console. Rose promptly shrugged, moving out of sight. The boy remained, however, continuing to peer down for a suspicious moment.

"What're you doing down there?"

"Ricky."

" _Mickey_."

"Ricky," The Doctor continued, wholly unbothered. "If I were to tell you what I was doing to the controls of my frankly magnificent timeship," he lazily stored the sonic between his teeth for a moment, freeing both hands to tug at a faulty transistor chip, "woul' you e'en ' _egin_ oo undershan'?"

"I suppose not."

He retrieved the screwdriver from his lips and shot the boy a dismissively pleasant grin. "Well _shut it_ then."

Mickey's face scrunched into its hundredth frown of the evening, and he finally moved away from the busy pilot, seeking out the Tardis' other rogue occupant where she'd perched on the jumpseat.

They spoke in hushed voices, creating the semblance of privacy and oblivious to the fact that the Doctor would hear even their quietest whispers unless they physically left the room. Even so, the Time Lord didn't bother to pay them mind. It was a predictable enough interaction, a soft collision of hurt feelings and temporal disparities, and there was little there to interest him. Still, after a moment they fell curiously silent, and the Doctor was thankful when he finally bypassed the monitor's processing issue.

"Got it!" He called triumphantly, emerging from the floor in time to watch the pair flinch away from one another. "Needed a small radar patch. Don't use this very often." He patted the monitor fondly before setting back to work on the buttons below. The screen began to respond, a slow but clear picture forming upon it as the Doctor tuned his measurements. "Here we go. Hold on.... come on."

The trio watched as a blip appeared on the blue-toned render of Earth. The tiny light suddenly moved, trailing an arc out into space before returning to a spot not far from its origin point.

The Doctor crossed his arms triumphantly. "You see? The ship did a slingshot round the Earth before it landed."

Rose reached out a finger, tracing the looped scan with a furrowed brow. "Why? What does that-"

"It means it came from Earth in the first place. Went up cloaked, came down roarin'." He tipped his head. "Whoever your guests are, they haven't just arrived, they've been here for a while - and they've got to have some understanding of your military capabilities, if they were able to hide all this until now." His companion looked nervously pensive, while Mickey looked more than a bit betrayed. "The question is, what have they been doing?"

* * *

Once again, they were relegated to watching the news.

There was the added benefit of the Tardis' presence and Jackie Tyler's lack thereof, but the Doctor still found himself going dry-eyed with boredom at the constant interruptions by anchors with irrelevant quips of commentary. They'd been saying the same four things for the past four hours.

He leaned stiffly on the nearest coral strut, unable to pull his attention from the screen lest something significant occur. Most situations would have seen him dashing there in person, but from what he could glean, there was absolutely nothing of worth happening within 10 Downing Street aside from policy meetings and gatherings of blustery, red-faced men. It was likely he remained most useful on a watchful basis, but his patience was wearing thin, and the young humans lounged nearby were beginning to fidget.

"How many channels do you get?" 

"All the basic packages."

"You get sports channels?" Mickey slowly began to reach toward the screen, but stopped short when the Doctor stepped forward and pushed his hand from the air.

"Not right now, I don't." He leaned his forearms on the console, watching in interest for the first time as several dark cars pulled into the frame - one of which arriving so haphazardly that the news anchor had to hurry out of the way. She brushed off her spotless coat before looking back up to address the camera.

" _It appears that the Government has requested a council of alien experts - those people who have devoted their lives to studying outer space_."

Rose squinted at the image for a moment before her finger landed on the lower left corner of the screen. "Who are all these blokes in berets?"

"UNIT." Mickey crossed his arms, stepping up smugly beside her before the Doctor could answer. "United Nations Intelligence Taskforce."

The Time Lord snorted. "What do _you_ know about UNIT?"

"Don't think I sat on my backside for twelve months, Doctor. I read up on you." The boy stepped forward, and something primal began to tickle in warning at the Doctor's back. "You look deep enough on the Internet, or in history books - and there's your name. Followed by a list of the dead."

Rose shot the boy an impressively foul look, which all but distracted the Doctor from his climbing temper, and he threw Mickey a taunting smile. "That's nice. Good boy, Ricky."

His companion had clearly had enough of their bickering, and she shifted squarely into the Doctor's eyeline, pulling his attention back from the misfit presence in his home.

"If you know them, why don't you go and help?" She questioned, gesturing to the busy screen to indicate Downing Street.

"Because while there may be a UNIT presence, this is currently a military-led crisis. Particularly with the Prime Minister apparently on the outs. There are all sorts of peeved and powerful people calling the shots right now, and the world's on a knife's edge. After all, there's _aliens_ out there." He gave a satirical wiggle of his fingers, which got a laugh from Rose and even drew a grudging almost-smile from Mickey. "For now, best keep me and the Tardis out the mix. I'm more efficient undercover. Ricky, you've got a car - you can do some driving."

"Where to?" Mickey asked apprehensively, as the Doctor shut down the monitor and waved at them to follow him out of the Tardis.

"With this fresh gathering to focus on, roads around the crash site should be calmin'. Let's go and have a look at that spaceship."

It was, however, not to be, as they walked out of the Tardis and straight into roaring air and a blinding spotlight. A legion of armored vehicles swarmed around them, letting loose a smattering of military personnel onto the lot. Mickey immediately bolted sideways, vaulting himself over a collection of bins and disappearing into the dark. The Doctor couldn't blame him, squinting in annoyance up at the stupid helicopter and wishing he could bolt for it, too. Instead, he turned to look down at Rose, who looked anxious but somehow unsurprised. 

"It's alright." He practically had to yell in her ear. "They're just a little more desperate than I thought!"

To make matters more irritating, Rose's mother scurried from the front of their building, spewing tragedies and making a beeline for her daughter. She may even have been successful in the endeavor, if only she'd taken a moment to stop bloody _yelling._ But such had proven an impossible feat, and two soldiers were quickly catching the woman around her waist. "Rose! _Rose!_ "

The gravelly voice of a man taking himself too seriously suddenly bellowed orders at them. "Step away from the box, and raise your hands above your heads!"

They quickly complied, the Doctor doing so with a smile on his face. It was rarely cause for amusement to be surrounded by an army leveling weapons at you, but he was fully aware of the context of their arrival - which made the G.I. routine slightly laughable.

So he laughed. "Take me to your leader."

**Author's Note:**

>   
> ❂ If you enjoyed, drop a kudos or a comment :) if you didn't, idk babe, I'm not getting paid anyway xo ❂


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